Von Strassenberg Quotes

“How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable?”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“Whatever happened in those more than one hundred years, from the time my great-great-great grandfather studied law to the time when my own father took his bar exam in 1989, I may never know. Perhaps it was just greed and the good, old-fashion corruption that comes with power. The Drexlers have moved from the fight for human rights to the fight for corporations and wealthy individuals. We file their taxes, write their contracts, clean up their messes. As I see it, we have become little more than glorified Public Relations reps”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what?”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“It seemed to me that Mr. Forrester would approve of a woman who could follow him in conversation and not be baffled by ledgers and currency conversions. I had grossly overestimated him.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“Oil and Water, Daddy calls us. At four years younger than me, Katie is only fourteen and she already has half the boys in town eating from her pretty little hand. She tells me I am too tall and too wicked looking to capture the heart of any sensible young man.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“It was enough to drive me mad. I was no longer myself and yet I was so much more me than I had ever been before.
~Katherine Demure”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“These were not the belongings of the past prisoner he had imagined. These were a lady’s things—hairpins and stockings and a glove. There were more clues waiting but William no longer felt certain he wanted to know the dark secrets of this cell.”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“And Mother, I love her dearly, but she flies into a panic whenever I mention women’s rights. As she sees it, it will be so much more difficult to marry me off if I am not only of a weak constitution but of a progressive mind as well.”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“I can see how your mother would have a point. Having a debate with a politically minded woman can be intriguing and even entertaining but to share a house with her and have her always campaigning and protesting at the dinner table,” he slanted his gaze down toward me. “That could be very tiring indeed.”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“Tragic tales rarely do make sense.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“We ran on the fuel of youth and hormones and ignorant arrogance, imagining we had the whole world and the workings thereof figured out.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“I came from across the ocean and through the wilderness and landed here and found you hiding behind a tapestry. My fate was sealed at the sight of your stockinged feet.
~Viktor von Strassenberg”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“My dear lady, you have no idea just how scandalous I can be. ~Peter Viktor von Strassenberg, 1905”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks

“You can cower,” she told them in a clear voice, wrapping her long shaking fingers around the cold iron bars. “But I will stand.”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks

“Different century. It’s totally okay.”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks

“A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. “I didn’t. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself.”
“Very kind of you.”
“Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time.”
Daddy’s lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. “Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?” Daddy is toying with him.
“Both. You see, I had never actually met his son.” The glass rests against Daddy’s lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. “But now I have, so I can get on with my,” he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, “business.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“A glance would not be enough to tell you this was the daughter of Katherine Raquel Demure. Even a lingering gaze would not suffice. No. Only careful study of the original and a comparative inspection of her only child would even hint at a relation between the two. Viktor could see it and knew, beyond doubt, that Henrietta not only saw it but was also vexed by it on a daily basis.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out
behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.”
― Gwenn Wright, The BlueStocking Girl

“Even then his thoughts did not turn to prayer but to Abbie and to what she would think about his lack of prayerfulness and that surely she would have immediately broken out in prayer. “Doesn’t matter now,” he whispered and felt that he could not cry out to God.
~William Drexler the Third”
― Gwenn Wright, Katherine's Journal

“If you two had babies would they be like uber-von Strassenbergs? Would they be like eight feet tall?”
― Gwenn Wright, Lipstick & Bolsheviks