I don’t know what you’re talking about, but any organization that claims you for a member doesn’t get to call itself sinister, whether you’re left-handed or not. I would be insulted to be offered membership in such a NIMBY-pamby organization. It would be like the Archbishop of Canterbury calling a select club of his compatriots ‘Bad, Bad Bishops’.” Marshall sniggered.“Watch out for the clergy,” Edward said. “They’re absolutely wild. Sometimes they have an extra biscuit at tea.

— Courtney Milan

I’d tell you to fetch a match, but you have always had your own spark.

— Courtney Milan

If a man ever lets you know that he sees marriage as a trap, and women as nothing but scheming connivers, you are by no means to marry him. Any man that sees your entire sex in so harsh a light has nothing to offer you.

— Courtney Milan

I fear that one day I will no longer understand desperation, and with that, I will slowly stop listening to what others have to say.

— Courtney Milan

If I had married, there is much I would not have learned of myself. This has been hard and painful and horrible. But I've learned that I'm stronger than hard, better than pain, and that with enough luck, horrible can go away.

— Courtney Milan

If it must be done, it's best done bravely.

— Courtney Milan

If I’ve learned anything, it's that we know next to nothing. Disease is a mystery. Health is inscrutable. The body itself is scarcely understood; we can only examine the secrets of the dead. And in all that dark ignorance, we're sometimes granted a rare moment of illumination. The truth is a gift.

— Courtney Milan

I hated you,” she continued, “because you have done nothing more than abide by rules that every gentlewoman follows every day of her life. Yet for this prosaic feat, you are feted and cosseted as if you were a hero.” She felt nothing as she spoke, but still her voice shook. Her hands were trembling, too. “I hate that if a woman misstep once, she is condemned forever, and yet the men who follow you can tie a simple ribbon to their hats after years of debauchery, and pass themselves off as upright pillars of society.

— Courtney Milan

I keep everything hidden because there's nothing about my true self that anyone likes. I'm not difficult, Sebastian. Furthermore, I'm the easiest person around. Furthermore, I don't belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry. It's not fair to the people around me when I lose my temper. I say awful things when I'm angry. But it's not fair to me, either, that I was made this way.

— Courtney Milan

I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine.

— Courtney Milan