#land

He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!' Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength. ↗

— Diana Gabaldon

#outlander #humor

By some miracle, Charlotte's polite smile never wavered. It was a proud moment for her. After all, it wasn't every day that a little old lady told you right to your face that your bosom was as flat as a flounder. ↗

— Olivia Parker

#historical #humor #regency-england #to-wed-a-wicked-earl #humor

A word, Sir Jamie. Quickly!" You may speak freely, Alwyn," Jamie sighed. "You are always making too mcuh of minor incidents." You're no' going to believe it, Sir Jamie," Alwyn gasped. "But I swear every male Fergusson alive is outside our gate. ↗

— Johanna Lindsey

#humor #raid #humor

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#belief #fantasy #flying #imagination #kensington-gardens

It’s me,” said Jace. “Watching me play Scrabble is enough to make most women swoon. Imagine if I actually put in some effort. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#jace-wayland #imagination

For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person (on Margaret Thatcher) ↗

— Frankie Boyle

#devil #funeral #hell #margaret-thatcher #politics

Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]? ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#double-standards #gender #hypocrisy #immorality #men

He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be spoken on the high crags of Europe; or Dutch in the muddy, guttural, phlegmish lowlands. ↗

— Alexander McCall Smith

#german #irish #landscape #language #imagination

What is more irritating than to see one’s subject, on whom one has lavished so much time and trouble, slipping out of one’s grasp altogether and indulging — witness her sighs and gasps, her flushing, her palings, her eyes now bright as lamps, now haggard as dawns — what is more humiliating than to see all this dumb show of emotion and excitement gone through before our eyes when we know that what causes it — thought and imagination — are of no importance whatsoever? ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#imagination

True the greater part of the Irish people was close to starvation. The numbers of weakened people dying from disease were rising. So few potatoes had been planted that, even if they escaped bight, they would not be enough to feed the poor folk who relied upon them. More and more of those small tenants and cottagers, besides, were being forced off the land and into a condition of helpless destitution. Ireland, that is to say, was a country utterly prostrated. Yet the Famine came to an end. And how was this wonderful thing accomplished? Why, in the simplest way imaginable. The famine was legislated out of existence. It had to be. The Whigs were facing a General Election. ↗

— Edward Rutherfurd

#famine #ireland #potato #whigs #imagination