Top Ten Tuesday: Book Quotes (Or, I Get A Little Carried Away)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Top Ten 120 Quotes from Books
In Which I Get a Little Carried Away
One thing you should probably know about me. I love quotes. A lot. I also love lists. And books. I also find there's a fine line between love and obsession, and I occasionally cross over from the former into the latter. Give me a chance to do it for three things at once? I'm probably going to take it.

Here's the deal. I obviously couldn't narrow it down to just ten quotes. That's crazy talk. But I also didn't want to just choose one category and do ten from it, which I also contemplated. Instead, I just went all out. Twelve categories: Books & Reading, Love, Romantic, True Story, Words of Wisdom, Humorous, Opening Lines, Pretty Words, Physical Description, Food, Dialogue Exchange, and Miscellaneous. Ten quotes each. Also, for the record, you can totally blame Magan from Rather Be Reading and Hannah from So Obsessed With for their encouragement in this madness. ;)

I spent an insane amount of time on this, but it was so much fun! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed compiling them. So, without further ado, have my Top "Ten" for today:

Books & Reading
Spoiler Warning: None

01. I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable. I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.
     - Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan
02. I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
     - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
03. She fainted from reading. What a great image. We've become far too jaded. I've been intrigued, bored, titillated, annoyed, amazed, but I've never even come close to fainting while reading any book.
     - The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs
04. ...good romances will create an absolute joy and possibly the desire to forcibly beat someone with a paperback until they agree to read that fantastic book you've just finished.
     - Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell
05. When in doubt, go to the library.
     - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
06. She smiled, wondering what he would say if he knew this worn, jumbled collection of books was such a powerful aphrodisiac.
     - One Dance With a Duke by Tessa Dare
07. I love books. I like that the moment you open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be.
     - Bloom by Elizabeth Scott
08. Nobody can read too much. That's like saying someone breathes too much.
     - Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin
09. Even when she was old enough to read herself, they still tackled the classics together, moving from Anna Karenina to Pride and Prejudice to The Grapes of Wrath as if traveling across the globe itself, leaving holes in the bookshelves like missing teeth. And later, when it started to become clear that she cared more about soccer practice and phone privileges than Jane Austen or Walt Whitman, when the hour turned into a half hour and every night turned into every other, it no longer matter. The stories had become a part of her by then; they stuck to her bones like a good meal, bloomed inside of her like a garden. They were as deep and meaningful as any other trait Dad had passed along to her: her blue eyes, her straw-colored hair, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose.
     - The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
10. My mother always said that our own stories were where we made sense of things, but I think all stories have that power. You could put your confusion and upset and worries into whatever book you were reading. You could sort of set them down in there, and you could come out with your head on a little straighter. I don’t know why stories worked that way, but they did. They’re an actual place where confusing things order themselves.
     - The Story of Us by Deb Caletti

Love
Spoiler Warning: None

01. Being in love ought to feel as if you held that bolt of lightning in your hands.
     - Heart of the West by Penelope Williamson
02. I don't think you tell someone you love them because you expect something. I think you tell them because you have something to give.
     - Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts
03. And real love - it's less shiny than solid and simple. It's the stuff of sunflower spirals and seashells, where there is beauty and mystery, but where there is logic, too.
     - The Secret Life of Prince Charming by Deb Caletti
04. I loved him in a way that you can really only do the first time around. It's the kind of love that doesn't know better and doesn't want to - it's dizzy and foolish and fierce. That kind of love it really a one-time-only thing.
     - We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han
05. There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.
     - The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
06. Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.
     - Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
07. So I'm in love. That crazy, forget to eat, float around in a daze, talk on the phone all night and bounce out of bed every morning hoping to see him kind of love.
     - Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
08. How foolish, how wasteful to have love within your reach and not take it!
     - Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas
09. Love without choice isn’t love at all.
     - A Million Suns by Beth Revis
10. Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly.
     - The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Romantic
Spoiler Warning: #8

01. He kissed her as if he could breathe her in. Fierce kisses, hard ones, teasingly articulate ones, soft enticing ones, kisses to light bonfires and fill the sky and hold the stars aloft.
     - Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas
02. Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, I'm sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech.
     - Ulysses by James Joyce
03. Lightning flows through me at his touch. So help me God, lightning.
     - Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler
04. I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
     - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
05. He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it. -
     - The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
06. James pushed her against the wall and kissed her again, and it was so welcome, so wonderful, being kissed like that, as if the building could burn down around them and it would be more important to keep kissing, hard and hot and fierce.
     - Somebody to Love by Kristan Higgins
07. I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
     - The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
08. Earlier, in his shower, her breathing had started out quiet like this, but then she'd gone up in flames for him. He'd loved it, loved the way she'd panted for more, clutching at him as if she was afraid he'd stop... And then in the very next beat, when she'd started to suffocate, all he'd wanted to do was breathe for her.
     - Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis
09. I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.
     - Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas
10. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.
     - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

True Story
Spoiler Warning: None

01. Absence is a curious thing. When friends are absent, they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel.
     - The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
02. At the same time, I was trying to perfect The Look—wry amusement, inner contentment and absolute comfort. Sort of a 'Hello! I am perfectly fine being single at yet another wedding and am not at all desperate for a man, but if you happen to be straight, under forty-five, attractive, financially secure and morally upright, come on down!' Once I mastered The Look, I planned on splitting an atom, since they required just about the same level of skill.
     - Too Good to be True by Kristan Higgins
03. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.
     - The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
04. The universe had been treating her with great sarcasm lately.
     - The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne
05. Only a man could be so unkempt and manage to look more endearingly handsome than ever.
     - A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare
06. Just once can't I be the kind of girl who can walk into a room and toss her hair just so?
     - Bloom by Elizabeth Scott
07. Sometimes, people are a big surprise...Sometimes the surprise turns out to be good. And sometimes the surprise turns out to be bad. And sometimes the surprise is just friggin' confusing.
     - Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
08. Unrequited lust made for crappy conversation. -
     - Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins
09. The problem with pretending to be extroverted was that once I started, there was no telling what wound come out of my mouth.
     - The One that I Want by Jennifer Echols
10. The silence went on just long enough to make it uncomfortable. But I wasn’t going to help him with his small talk. I’m not very good at it in the best of circumstances. Sitting almost thigh to thigh with a guy who turned me into a mental pretzel was nowhere near a good circumstance.
     - The Fine Art of Truth or Dare by Melissa Jensen

Words of Wisdom
Spoiler Warning: None

01. Earrings are like orgasms: You can never have too many.
     - Daring to Dream by Nora Roberts
02. Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.
     - Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas
03. Everyone who had evolved passed the Cro-Magnon level knew that one should never make snide remarks about a person's weight, religion or choice of caffeinated beverages.
     - Sex, Murder and a Double Latte by Kyra Davis
04. There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.
     - Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
05. Note to self: always choose sex over physical labor.
     - Simply Irresistible by Jill Shalvis
06. Note to self: buy some nunchucks or something.
     - Hallowed by Hallowed
07. Moments, when lost, can't be found again. They're just gone.
     - The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
08. So, you see, the way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.
     - The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
09. All’s fair in sex and Scrabble.
     - Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey
10. Don’t write off a book (or person, or movie) just because it has a pink, sparkly cover.
     - Getting Over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald

Humorous
Spoiler Warning: #3

01. She was so beautiful it made his teeth ache. He made a mental note not to attempt poetry.
     - What Happens in London by Julia London
02. Grandfathers wear tweed. Old guys in old British movies wear tweed. Why do I find it sexy that he wears tweed? This is a question that haunts me.
     - Vision in White by Nora Roberts
03. By Friday, she was debating the relative merits of putting another bullet through him and trying to decide which portion of his anatomy she could most easily live without. By Saturday, she'd decided that his brain was probably the most dispensable.
     - Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
04. He has no right to threaten my boyfriends. I'm eighteen. An adult. I don't need his help. I can threaten my boyfriends myself.
     - Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead
05. Since “Hi, I’m Ella. You look like someone I’d like to spend the rest of my life with,” would have been totally insane, I opted for sitting quietly and staring.
     - The Fine Art of Truth or Dare by Melissa Jensen
06. On the one hand, it sounded like a great adventure. On the other, it sounded like an unusual obituary.
     - Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis
07. Always remember, you're unique. Just like everyone else.
     - Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis
08. It’s not stalking if you’re happy to see me?
     - Hallowed by Cynthia Hand
09. I was driving a truck now. Appropriate, I thought. Empowering. I’d practically grown testicles.
     - Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
10. Thank God she wasn’t still hanging out in her underpants.
     - Something About You by Julie James

Opening Lines
Spoiler Warning: None

01. First the colors.
Then the humans.
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.
     - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
02. In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and clear that one feels as if one’s been hit in the chest, all the breath knocked out, and one knows, absolute knows witheout the merest hint of a shadow of a doubt that one’s life will never be the same.
     - When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn
03. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
     - I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
04. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
     - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
05. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
     - Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
06. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
     - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
07. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
     - Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
08. The play -- for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper -- was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.
     - Atonement by Ian McEwen
09. All children, except one, grow up.
     - Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
10. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
     - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pretty Words (AKA, Writing That Makes Me Melt)
Spoiler Warning: #2

01. Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine.
     - Ulysses by James Joyce
02. ...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
     - Ulysses by James Joyce
03. In the bar she was still lanky. Big feet. Long legs. And they all moved in a pleasing languid dramatic graceful performance. As if her body also were busy having a conversation. First it talked to itself and then it talked politely to me.
     - The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
04. And therefore it were not well for me to expound this difficulty, inasmuch as my speaking would be either fruitless or else superfluous.
     - La Vita Nuova by Dante
05. I remember that feeling of skin. It’s strange to remember touch more than thought. But my fingers still tingle with it.
     - Stolen by Lucy Christopher
06. It felt fragile, that kiss. As if this, too, would break.
     - Unclaimed by Courtney Milan
07. Something with words like my father, I said to him in my head, because words were hills and valleys you traveled, so lovely sometimes that they hurt your eyes.
     - Stay by Deb Caletti
08. The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.
     - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
09. Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.
     - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
10. Walk with me, hand in hand through the neon and styrofoam. Walk the razor blades and the broken hearts. Walk the fortune and the fortune hunted. Walk the chop suey bars and the tract of stars. I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint; the humiliations and exaltations that light us up. I see like a bug, everything too large, the pressure of infinity hammering at my head. But how else to live, vertical that I am, pressed down and pressing up simultaneously? I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.
     - Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

Physical Description
Spoiler Warning: None

01. He had the kind of looks that made breathing irrelevant.
     - Fools Rush In by Kristan Higgins
02. He wore faded blue jeans, a flannel shirt and work boots, and I swear to you, he was the most desirable and delicious man God ever made, thank you, Father, thank you, Son, thank you, Holy Spirit.
     - Fools Rush In by Kristan Higgins
03. He was the sort of man who sent female hearts pounding, sent windpipes into asthmatic fibrillations, who addled brains till nothing but nonsense came out.
     - The Proposition by Judith Ivory
04. Watching him pass, women fainted mentally and men contemplated killing him.
     - Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase
05. Hot is really not an adequate enough word for this guy. He is crazy beautiful.
     - Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
06. His voice was enough to make a girl forget she'd been shot at.
     - Definitely Not Mr. Darcy by Kate Doornebos
07. Sweet baby Jesus, that smile should come with a label: WARNING: Prolonged exposure will cause yearning, lust, and stupidity.
     - The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis
08. Wade smiled. It was his professional smile, the one that could melt a woman’s panties at fifty paces and make men wish that they had half his athletic prowess, and it was a charmer. She knew its potency, braced herself for it, and still felt her panties melt.
     - Slow Heat by Jill Shalvis
09. The guy was edible. No other word need apply.
     - Double Play by Jill Shalvis
10. She held her head as if she were the period at the end of her own sentence.
     - The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti

Food
Spoiler Warning: None

01. Clearly, he was underestimating my ability to consume food.
     - Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead
02. I've seen the way you look at him. It's how I look at junk food.
     - The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis
03. I can feel my arteries clogging even as I swallow, and I'm good with that.
     - The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis
04. Unfortunately, Holly fell over whenever she attempted yoga, she had an ongoing love affair with junk food, and she lacked the ability to live stress free.
     - Double Play by Jill Shalvis
05. I need a steak. Or a plate of burgers. Hell, I don’t care what it is as long as it’s red meat and no longer mooing.
     - Slow Heat by Jill Shalvis
06. French fries and sunsets were God’s gift, he decided.
     - Slow Heat by Jill Shalvis
07. He knew enough about her to know she’d do just about anything for ice cream.
     - Slow Heat by Jill Shalvis
08. Where two or more ladies are gathered, there will be food.
     - A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare
09. He could do this. He’d survived boot camp. He’d survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.
     - Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey
10. “You know, it’s not good for you,” he says through a mouthful of muffin. “All that sitting around, reading. What are you going to do when the zombies come? You’ll be too out of shape to run.”
     - Getting Over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald

Dialogue Exchanges
Spoiler Warning: #6

01. “You fence—like Captain Jack Sparrow?”
“If only. I bet you have a thing for Johnny Depp.”
“I am alive. I am female. Next question.”
     - Vision in White by Nora Roberts
02. "Weren't you listening?"
"Listening, yes. Believing, no."
     - The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper
03. "Do you exercise?"
"It's on my to-do list." At the bottom, but still...
     - Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis
04. "Do you know why my peers want their brides to have pale skin?"
"Why?"
"They want a woman who is a canvas, white and empty. Standing still, existing for no other purpose than to serve as a mute object onto which they can paint their own hopes and desires. They want their brides veiled. They want a demure, blank space they can fill with whatever they desire. Damn their bonnets. Damn their rules."
"What do you want? Why are you doing this to me?"
"Miss Lowell, you magnificent creature, I want you to paint your own canvas. I want you to unveil yourself."
     - Unveiled by Courtney Milan
05. “He didn’t impress me as much of a good time, so I didn’t invite him in. Did he catch up with you?”
“Yeah. He was waiting downstairs.”
“And?”
“I shot him, and he left.”
“Nice. I was thinking we should put the frozen pizza in the oven. Is there any more wine?”
     - Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
06. “I’m not the easiest man,” he replied warily.
Miranda smothered a smile. “You sound as if you fear this might come as a sad shock to me. And yet, over the course of our acquaintance, I had noticed that. Nonetheless, despite all sense and rational argument, you are my favorite.”
     - Unraveled by Courtney Milan
07. “I’ve got some kind of tropical drink with one of those little umbrellas in it, and I’m reading a book – one I don’t have to highlight or outline in the margins.”
“They makes those kinds of books?”
“If memory serves.”
     - About That Night by Julie James
08. “And we can even go to the library,” she adds brightly, as if it’s some kind of bribe. Which, to be honest, it kind of is.
"Okay"
     - Getting Over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald
09. "Do you fall in love often?"
Yes often. With a view, with a book, with a dog, a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all.”
     - Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson
10. "What? I took it because of the girls in the class. Anyway, I see a bit of a P and P dynamic going on between you and Payton."
J.D. didn't think he wanted to know. Really. But he asked anyway. "P and P?"
Tyler shot him a look, appalled. "Uh, hello--Pride and Prejudice?" His tone said only a cretin wouldn't know this.
"Oh right, P and P," J.D. said. "You know, Tyler, you might want to pick up your balls--I think they just fell right off when you said that.”
     - Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

Miscellaneous
Spoiler Warning: None

01. Because if it was Christmas when you didn't expect it, it was possible, just maybe possible, that it might be Christmas any day at all.
     - The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti
02. I cannot bear the thought of this being just one moment in time, over almost before it started, already retreating into the past. I must hold onto it with all my might.
     - Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
03. Sometimes it's like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It's like you see them through a special lens - but maybe if it's how you see them, that's how they really are. It's like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.
     - The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
04. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
     - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
05. It wasn’t disappointing, exactly. Just…not…un-disappointing. There ought to be a word for that. Really, there ought.
     - On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn
06. People always think that happiness is a faraway thing, something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains—a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone—just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.
     - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
07. Sex is so much better than Prozac.
     - Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights by Kyra Davis
08. Susanna could have gleefully crushed its pages to powder with a mortar and pestle, labeled the vial with a skull and crossbones, and placed it on the highest shelf in her stillroom, right beside the dried foxglove leaves and deadly nightshade berries.
     - A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare
09. You can die of a broken heart – it’s scientific fact – and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we’re together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.
     - Getting Over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald
10. ...She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.
     - The Awakening by Kate Chopin