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“   In 1658, Francis Andrew Ransome stole the Alchemy Scroll from St. Julian’s college, my present employer. Ransome was a member of a transatlantic group called The Invisible College. They were alchemists, meaning they worked with matter and spirit together.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“If the Agency could become a container for something neither Anna nor Mary had known before: a family. Now, without Caroline depending on her, Anna was alone. It did not taste good. There were voices inside: I am risking everything; I could lose everything.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“The fire on the mountain.�� That was Anna. “Alchemy,�� she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.��
“Singing?�� Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.”��
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean��?�� began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“The Alchemy Scroll works on the heart,�� he said. “It plants words as I plant stones. The Scroll-maker is my brother. He paints the mysteries of God while I, guided by the Mother, built the new Hall as a door to heaven,�� he said.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“There was no going back now. Rubber and metal could only take so much. The car could shatter and send its passengers into an elemental distillation of rock, flesh, blood, and ash. Alchemy, thought Mary, grimly. Too much bloody alchemy.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“But this Scroll too has magical properties. From the moment I first saw it, the paper warmed to my touch. I know it came alive as I held it. Did you know there’s a serpent on the back? Some say it’s a dragon. It winked at me. Its lashes are gold.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Mary stared at the dreamlike happenings on the page. Human figures faced each other; the man’s head was a golden ball with rays reaching up to huge stars and out to the distant mountains; the woman’s silver head was sickle-shaped and surrounded by birds like eagles with white beaks. Some of the black letters glowed because they had tips like tiny flames.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“You can’t set fires, Anna. Never again. Promise.��
[Anna] aimed her defiance at Mary.
“And you? What’s your reason to hate me?��
Caroline spoke quietly. “We nearly died �� in the fire in those mountains and at the house when Ravi had a gun pointed at us.�� Her eyes were full of tears. “The fire you set at The Old Hospital could have killed me as well as Janet and Agnes.��
Anna muttered into the syrupy dregs of her tea. “Fire, you’re firing me?��
Mary grimaced. There had been too much fire.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Mary’s hands clenched. She’d been through fire, what with a murder, and white supremacists. And what about Caroline, who had gone undercover to rescue the Scroll’s Key Keeper? Where were the College’s thanks for that?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“She stabbed the earth with her big fork as if she could make Cookie Mac’s blood sprout from it.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something �� a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things �� which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys

“The music in his laughter had a way of rounding off the missing notes in her soul.”
― Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills

“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”
― Gloria Naylor

“But I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or to make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.”
― Gloria Naylor

“Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Once we give up searching for approval we often find it easier to earn respect.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”
― Gloria Steinem

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”
― Gloria Steinem

“She gripped the wheel and squared her shoulders. She didn’t have to do any of this alone. All she had to do was notify the society and put out an All Points Bulletin on Adam and she’d know everything there was to know about the man within 24 hours.”
― Kirsten Fullmer

“Mildred adjusted the papers and scribbled some more. When she was finished, she took off her glasses, leaving them to swing from the chain around her neck. She gave the women around the table a pointed look. “Now think hard, ladies, can you come up with anything else?”
― Kirsten Fullmer

“The mayor stood, his surprise at her interruption apparent by his twitching mustache. “You—you can’t just burst in here. Who are you?”
― Kirsten Fullmer, Trouble on Main Street

“Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.”
― Homer, The Odyssey