Quotes About Expectations

Perhaps men like the Everseas were commonplace here in England. Perhaps finding a beautiful titled husband would be as simple as shaking an apple from a tree.

To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late.

He held her gaze steady while he summarized her promises. "She will honor me, protect me, obey me only when she believes I'm being reasonable—but I shouldn't hold out hope that that day will ever come—try to love me before she's an old woman, and I'd better get it straight in my mind that she will respect me until or unless I do something to prove I'm not worthy, and God save me then. Have I left anything out, Brenna?

Iain didn't know what to say to her. They had all asked an incredible amount from her. She was such an innocent, too. Hell, she wasn't even married, and yet they'd demanded she deliver a baby. He wasn't even certain if she knew how Isabelle had conceived the babe.

If you'd wanted to get married with your feet on the ground, then you should have said something.

He merely accepted that this was unique and so special he would never be able to settle for anything less again.

We praised them when they were kind to others but told them not to expect to be rewarded for their good deeds. We scolded them whenever they tried to talk back. We taught them never to accept a handout. We taught them never to brag. We taught them everything we knew.

My daughter, I said blankly. I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant's father to be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him?

I was learning the nature of magic; it seemed to work according to a strict set of rules. And yet, somehow, it never worked in quite the way you expected.

You are being very demanding indeed. Where, I wonder, will we find the woman to satisfy you You really should have stayed single--all woman-worshippers should be single. They never find the woman who answers all the requirements.

For it is not true that one has the right to be loved by the person one loves, as the poets say.

Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to Harvard, I was happy. Except, it hadn't gotten me to Harvard. Clearly, it was time to switch to category two.

That is all you can think of: what people will say! One goes from one end of the world to the other to hear the same story. Does it matter what people say?

Corpus bones, I thought. To be wedded to this perfumed prig with his mouth in a knot and a frown always on his face!

Was there some fault in English fathers and mothers of the rich and famous?

In fact, you could almost hold that no man is perfect until he meets the right woman.

But that's what happens when you allow a nice person to write a news paper serial for you; now the world thinks you're nice, too, which is silly in the extreme. Sadly, it's a burden that you must bear.

Nonsense. One day, the right man will come along, and you'll change your mind." Harriet wasn't so sure. In all her twenty-four years, she'd never met a single man who had managed to make her feel anything more than acute irritation.

Men are, if nothing else, predictable. Fortunately for us all, women are not.

No matter what station you hold in life, there will always be things that will surprise you. Whether you choose to be outraged or delighted is up to you.

Me mam, bless her soul, tol' me tha' was the worst thing ye could be to a man—convenient.

Beth sighed. "I want a relationship, but then again…I don't." To her surprise, Grandfather cackled. "That's quite normal, my girl. Quite normal indeed. There are no guarantees in this life. You have to take what you can get and enjoy it while you have it.

parenting and caretaking were so much harder than she'd thought they would be. No one had explained to her that she'd be constantly worried, her imagination churning out worst-case scenarios with devastating details as if she'd suddenly become Stephen King's muse.

But no one is easier to delude than a parent; they see only what they wish to see.