“And whose nitwit idea was this?’ Betty Hardacre snapped, her orthopedic shoes sinking into sand. Betty was the chair of the Episcopal Church Women. She prided herself on upholding the parish’s long-standing traditions. Pastor Miranda McCurdy looked up from the grill where she tended to the sizzling barbecue. As the first woman to lead St. Gabriel-by-the-Sea in 180 years, she was used to resistance.”

“The story begins around the year 2500 B.C.E. Seth trudged across the Great Plain, carrying on his back a wickerwork basket containing flints to be traded. He was with his father and two older brothers. He hated all three of them.”

“Dear Dr. Sharon, The self-portrait you requested is attached. I make my living drawing marble installations to scale. I’m a draftsman who also provides designs for customers. Forgive the lack of nuance in the sketch, but it is a truthful rendering of how I see myself."

“Father Kavanagh. Pen in hand and his notebook open before him, he was ready to do what he did every November: Get started on his Christmas list. By seven thirty a.m., he had prayed with his wife, checked his sugar, had his shot, and polished off his stone-ground oatmeal with raw honey and multigrain toast. This upbeat start on the morning had made him overconfident - his pen was poised but nothing was happening. The grand expectation of churning through the list was morphing into a muse.”

“The sun is leaving for the day, and I probably should too. I shouldn’t be here at all. This has to stop, everyone says so. It’s not healthy, Cady. It’s not right. Not normal, not legal.”

“New Orleans - 1866. I had few pleasures to call my own. There was the peace found in the attic where I was made to board, the transporting comfort of the books in Mrs. Harper’s library, the deliciousness of the sweet bread I purchased with my allowance from the bakery down the road each Sunday of rest. But all of it paled in comparison to the joy brought upon me by Oliver, the terrier I considered my own.”

“Thursday, December 27th, eleven p.m. Kuldesh Sharma hopes he’s in the right place. He parks up at the end of the dirt track, hemmed in on all sides by trees, ghoulish in the darkness. He had finally made up his mind at about four this afternoon, sitting in the back room of his shop. The box was sitting on the table in front of him. He made two phone calls, and now here he is."

On a recent trip, I listened to the audiobook of Chris Bohjalian’s civil war novel The Jackal’s Mistress. Based on a real-life story, it presents an interesting dilemma... How much would you risk to help a wounded enemy?

“Sybil is a mother and grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law, these things are all there around her. On Monday around ten or half past Sybil Van Antwerp sits down at her desk again. It is the correspondence that is her manner of living.”

“On February 19, 1963, a troublesome, imperfect, controversial woman named Betty Friedan published a troublesome, imperfect, controversial book titled “The Feminine Mystique.” The book didn’t solve the problem. But it did put a name to it, shining a light that helped women who felt isolated and powerless find one another, and their voices.”