“I’ve been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people – world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lived lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they’ve had every advantage in the world. What I’ve learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collections of critics and anysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn’t go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.”
– Michelle Obama, “Becoming”

“The Thames. What a lot the river had seen: innumberable lives spent along its banks, countless deaths. And it was from this river that a boat had left, all those years ago, with little Nell on board. Taking her away from the life she’d known, towards an uncertain future. A futre that was now the past, a life that was over. And yet it still mattered, it had mattered to Nell and it mattered now to Cassandra. This puzzle was her inheritance. More than that, it was her responsibility.”
– Kate Morton, “the Forgotten Garden”