She was already fierce. She required none of this nonsense, and if she’d carried a man’s strength and her father’s horsewhip these villains would as one be on their knees.

I didn’t understand her being gone, either. I had seen her fall. Now her part of any conversation would always be unsaid, and the direction she would have gone walking would always be empty. Her absence extended in lines of numbers made of smoke, backward in memory and forward in futures never to occur.

It’s impossible to read The Poison Belt, written in 1913, and not see in its exterminating vision a shadow of the coming war that would, only slightly less effectively, destroy Conan Doyle’s world.

Chang believed that learning was dangerous and best suited for private contemplation, not something to put in the service of the highest bidder- as the Institute did, in thrall to the patronage of men with blind dreams of empire. Society was not bettered by such men of “vision” – though, if Chang was honest, was it bettered by anyone?

First you say I am a murderer – an agent in league against you – and now I am a deluded heartsick girl! Pray make up your mind so I can scoff at you with precision!

Heroines did not pick their own battles – the ones they knew they could win. On the contrary, they managed what they had to manage, and they did not lie to themselves about relying on others for help instead of accomplishing the thing alone.

It is always best when discussing serious matters to do so around a teapot.

but a man did not acquire so much gold brocade without learning to swallow his own desire

each man braces his fear against his love. What you love may change. But if you love still, your fear remains

She did not especially appreciate children either, but could be kind to them when they were silent.