Amy Snow Quotes
"What a desolate January traveller I must represent."
"My reason for being here, the only person I have ever loved, now lies beneath six feet of earth."
"Yet it seems that life, and grief, and winter go on."
"A young woman alone has ever been an easy target for villains."
"I hesitate in the hall. What am I? Respectable young woman or guttersnipe?"
"His kindness brings fresh tears to my eyes and only a supreme effort keeps them there."
"A bed is a place where so much of life is played out – births and deaths and passions and dreaming."
"I, in contrast, have never been ignorant of the fact that some children are infinitely more precious than others."
"I would not have survived that soft, glittering, beautiful bed – was not intended to, let us not shy from the facts."
"The reality of the man, here in my room, angry, tragic and raving, was deeply alarming."
"The green fabric is silk, embroidered with tiny sprays of Myosotis – forget-me-not."
"By the time you are fed, your room will be fit to receive you."
"I spin round to see Lord Vennaway stalking towards me, face grey, moustache shivering on his lip."
"She laughed. She actually laughed! And my life changed forever."
"Until then, I had lived a strange sort of existence, all piecemeal and patchwork."
"Aurelia always had an abundance of dreams and spoke of them often."
"It is the nature of bright, curious children to forget the fact."
"Aurelia greeted the news as though it were the cleverest device she had yet dreamed up."
"But Aurelia? Goddesses don’t have weak hearts."
"It is like a weight upon me and I cannot wrestle it."
"What would her condition impose upon her in the time that remained? She didn’t mind death, but she didn’t want to be changed before it came."
"I wish I could stop myself journeying back in time each time my quill touches the page."
"Our next hypothesis was that I was a gypsy... But gypsies could not have traveled across the Hatville estate, fenced and fortified as it was, so how did I come to be there?"
"I have grown accustomed to the blank spaces around the shapes of my life. I have grown accustomed to living with questions."
"I believe I must avoid January in future. Is there some way I can will myself into a fairy-tale slumber for the duration of all future Januarys and emerge, unscathed, each February?"
"She sighed and we both stared at the flames. I thought she would not answer me."
"I have fought passionately – over bonnets. I have stood my ground to defend my rights – to wear feathers."
"But there is no Entwhistle’s... Lord, what a wretched state of affairs."
"And so began the final phase of my life with Aurelia: once again constant companions, both of us tempered in different ways by her absence."
"I tiptoe through the silent house to my room. This evening’s laughter and warmth have made me lonelier than ever."
"For the very first time I have had a taste of belonging. It is the feeling that accompanies that old dream of mine, the one with the cottage and the pony."
"With Albert and Henry... I felt comfortable! I talked with them – I laughed!"
"The rain has stopped and I am bound for the country. It is the first day of February."
"I need go to no exhausting lengths to discover the address of the family I must visit."
"As the early morning freshness falls away, it seems to fume and brood."
"I paid without hesitation for a seat inside."
"I do not know where to put myself for the nearness of him."
"I sleep fitfully and wake to a sparkling morning."
"I have often thought dogs to be the most sensible creatures – no calling cards or conventions, merely food, sleep and romping."
"I am forbidden to speak and urged to eat and drink."
"I have little experience with such things and I am hard pressed to know how to speak and act so as not to feel like the spectre at the feast."
"I drift back into an uneasy sleep and when I wake again, a ragged dawn offers enough light to explore by."
"I wake with a start from a dream of falling."
"I was plunging a great way, into an abyss from which I knew I would not return."
"I am like a seamstress cutting out a dress to a pattern she did not design."
"Aurelia knew all too well her lineage – and spent her whole life resisting it because she swore it did not define her."
"The shining gentleman and the portly gentleman make gentlemanly conversation."
"The precious cargo is certainly well trained, I observe."
"From then on, Aurelia stopped giving me gifts that we could not read or eat."
"I am shy under such intense scrutiny – not just from little Louisa but from all of them."
"You do not want a wife any more than I want a husband."
"I cannot think what it must be like to be without a home at such a time."
"I wanted you to have this room because Miss Vennaway stayed here."
"The trunk, like something from one of Aurelia’s tales, appears bottomless."
"I cannot think why you can be so dearly devoted to one so scattered and selfish."
"It is a blank page as sure and undeniable as my blank, snowy baby bed."
"I am delighted to see you. However did you find me?"
"The care that has gone into making my room a haven more than compensates for the chill."
"I find myself fascinated by the perfect features, the exquisite dove-grey costume."
"I promise myself that if it is at all possible I shall stay in this house until I can wake to sure knowledge of which direction I am facing."
"I feel the gaping maw of my own family history all anew."
"A small, reluctant part of me can understand how the Vennaways would have been able to convince themselves that the risk to her was not so very great."
"We do not know who your people are! ’Tis a disgrace. You are a disgrace."
"I have not had such nightmares since those dark days after Aurelia collapsed in the orchard."
"I find myself wondering where it is that Henry Mead studies medicine."
"And yet the days pass and no further clue arrives."
"My heart thrums unaccountably. For just a brief instant I feel like running away."
"I daydream, passionately, intensely, as though dreaming might make it so, that the letter comes and tells me the journey is at an end after all."
"I wake to a sparkling morning. The rain has stopped and I am bound for the country."
"I am flooded with horror. How have they found me?"
"I am soon to move on to pastures unknown."
"I cannot help but look up. Sure enough, it is Mr Garland, blue cravat gleaming at his throat."
"I know that everyone here must have their own history of joys and disappointments."
"I smile more. The little frown is still there; old habits do not fall easily away."
"I was determined to go away, you know that. I had a fever upon me to grab any opportunity that came my way and consequences be damned."
"I promise myself that I will take him to the river tomorrow, just the two of us."
"I am pleased to find you looking so exceptionally well."
"You could never know what my life has been. There is a pattern laid out for women in this world of ours, Amy, and Lord help us if we do not follow it."
"A good many things make me laugh, Amy, and not one of them funny."
"Anyone who had rather be dead than disgraced is a fool."
"They have not all been easy, they have not all been pretty and they have been filled with trials, but they were my years – all mine – and no one can tell me I should not have had them."
"Not respectable, but powerful, which is a different thing altogether."
"So here you find me. Not respectable, but powerful, which is a different thing altogether."
"What I find incomprehensible is why anyone would choose this life."
"To be always on display, always suspicious of people’s motives, wondering what they are saying about me."
"Do you really think it is different anywhere else?"
"Come on, Amy, it’s a beautiful day, let’s go down to the stream!"
"I have always thought myself unfortunate, Mrs Riverthorpe, but I am not so, for I have known true friendship. Of all the blessings in life, this must be the brightest and best."
"They are vultures circling, Amy, waiting to pick me over when I am dead."
"Bath society is what I know. It amuses me! I could no sooner live a quiet life where everyone stitched and smiled and offered one another hankies than I could fly to the moon."
"I am what you might term an uncertain investment of time and self-respect."
"The hairs stand up on my arms. ‘Of course she was! I had letters from her. Do you mean she did not stay in this house?'"
"I am put in mind of Mr Templeton and the maid with the strawberry-blonde curls."
"But I cannot! I cannot have Aurelia back from the dead."
"I am too unusual, too free-spirited. Even I realize that, considering my fears upon our first meeting that I was too small and dull and dowdy, this is quite a turnaround."
"It is like being reminded of a strange dream, so caught up am I in these magical days."
"I am reflecting on this during one of Mrs Riverthorpe’s interminable card parties."
"Foolish child. It is because one must always keep the enemy in sight."
"At any rate, my beautiful gowns get nibbled and ’tis because of them. ’Tis war between us."
"They are my former husbands and lovers."