“Things could change so entirely, in a heartbeat; the world could be made entirely anew, because someone was kind.”
―
Jo Baker,
Longbourn
“Life was, Mrs. Hill had come to understand, a trial by endurance, which everybody, eventually, failed.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“...too much time spent with books had not fitted her to be easy with herself, and other people.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Because he wanted nothing from her; this was a generous, expansive feeling, unattached to the possibility of gratification; it was the simple happiness that came from knowing that one particular person was alive in the world” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“I would ask if you miss me like I miss you, so that there is not another spot in all the world that seems to mean anything at all, but where you are.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Sarah, in the crush, was able to study Miss Lucas's face discreetly, she wondered what it was like to know that you were to be married, that you would have a home, an income, that you were set up for life. To have achieved all this simply by agreeing to put up with one particular man until he died.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“It was a thought, that. Not to attach yourself to a man, but to confront instead the open world, the wide fields of France and Spain, the ocean, anything. Not just to hitch a lift with the first fellow who looked as though he knew where he was going, but just to go.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Perhaps it was not an easy thing, to be so entirely happy. Perhaps it was actually quite a fearful state to live in--the knowledge that one had achieved a complete success.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Wherever you are in this world, the sky is still above you. Wherever you are, God still watches over you; He sees into your heart.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“The ladies, who had condoled so thoroughly with her during her time of grief, found it rather more difficult to participate in her happiness, which takes a true and proper friend indeed.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“The room was dull now, and meaningless, with the young ladies gone from it. They were both lovely, almost luminous. And Sarah was, she knew, as she slipped along the servants' corridor, and then up the stairs to the attic to hang her her new dress on the rail, just one of the many shadows that ebbed and tugged at the edges of the light.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“You have no idea at all yet what you can bear!” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Threads that drift alone will sometimes simply twine themselves together, without need for spindle or distaff: brought into each other’s ambit, they bind themselves tight with the force of their own torsion. And this same torsion can, in the course of things, bundle the resulting cord back upon itself, ravelling it up into a skein, returning to the point of its beginning.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“she wondered what it was like to know that you were to be married, that you would have a home, an income, that you were set up for life. To have achieved all this simply by agreeing to put up with one particular man until he died.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“you can’t be permanently hysterical, so you might as well not bother getting started.” ― Jo Baker, The Undertow: A novel
“Other, dryer customers came and went, having just stepped out of their conveyances or popped down the street from their houses in the town. They left their umbrellas dripping at the door, and looked at her with that particular combination of sympathy and amusement that the soaked seem always to elicit in the dry.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Sarah wondered what it could be like, to live like this - life as a country dance, where everything is lovely, and graceful, and ordered, and every single turn is preordained, and not a foot may be set outside the measure. Not like Sarah's own out-in-all-weathers haul and trudge, the wind howling and blustery, the creeping flowers in the hedgerows, the sudden sunshine.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“James had no intentions; he could not afford to have any; he could not afford to rope another person to his saddle. All he could do was keep his head down and get his work done.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Because when you tell your stories, you start to recognize yourself in the stories of others. You start to discover that you are both, in fact, inside a shared story.” ― Lisa-Jo Baker, Never Unfriended: The Secret to Finding and Keeping Lasting Friendships
“Life was, Mrs. Hill had come to understand, a trial by endurance, which everybody, eventually, failed.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“...too much time spent with books had not fitted her to be easy with herself, and other people.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Because he wanted nothing from her; this was a generous, expansive feeling, unattached to the possibility of gratification; it was the simple happiness that came from knowing that one particular person was alive in the world” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“I would ask if you miss me like I miss you, so that there is not another spot in all the world that seems to mean anything at all, but where you are.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Sarah, in the crush, was able to study Miss Lucas's face discreetly, she wondered what it was like to know that you were to be married, that you would have a home, an income, that you were set up for life. To have achieved all this simply by agreeing to put up with one particular man until he died.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“It was a thought, that. Not to attach yourself to a man, but to confront instead the open world, the wide fields of France and Spain, the ocean, anything. Not just to hitch a lift with the first fellow who looked as though he knew where he was going, but just to go.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Perhaps it was not an easy thing, to be so entirely happy. Perhaps it was actually quite a fearful state to live in--the knowledge that one had achieved a complete success.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Wherever you are in this world, the sky is still above you. Wherever you are, God still watches over you; He sees into your heart.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“The ladies, who had condoled so thoroughly with her during her time of grief, found it rather more difficult to participate in her happiness, which takes a true and proper friend indeed.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“The room was dull now, and meaningless, with the young ladies gone from it. They were both lovely, almost luminous. And Sarah was, she knew, as she slipped along the servants' corridor, and then up the stairs to the attic to hang her her new dress on the rail, just one of the many shadows that ebbed and tugged at the edges of the light.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“You have no idea at all yet what you can bear!” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Threads that drift alone will sometimes simply twine themselves together, without need for spindle or distaff: brought into each other’s ambit, they bind themselves tight with the force of their own torsion. And this same torsion can, in the course of things, bundle the resulting cord back upon itself, ravelling it up into a skein, returning to the point of its beginning.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“she wondered what it was like to know that you were to be married, that you would have a home, an income, that you were set up for life. To have achieved all this simply by agreeing to put up with one particular man until he died.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“you can’t be permanently hysterical, so you might as well not bother getting started.” ― Jo Baker, The Undertow: A novel
“Other, dryer customers came and went, having just stepped out of their conveyances or popped down the street from their houses in the town. They left their umbrellas dripping at the door, and looked at her with that particular combination of sympathy and amusement that the soaked seem always to elicit in the dry.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Sarah wondered what it could be like, to live like this - life as a country dance, where everything is lovely, and graceful, and ordered, and every single turn is preordained, and not a foot may be set outside the measure. Not like Sarah's own out-in-all-weathers haul and trudge, the wind howling and blustery, the creeping flowers in the hedgerows, the sudden sunshine.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“James had no intentions; he could not afford to have any; he could not afford to rope another person to his saddle. All he could do was keep his head down and get his work done.” ― Jo Baker, Longbourn
“Because when you tell your stories, you start to recognize yourself in the stories of others. You start to discover that you are both, in fact, inside a shared story.” ― Lisa-Jo Baker, Never Unfriended: The Secret to Finding and Keeping Lasting Friendships
