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“I said: "Dead end - quiet, restful, like your town. I like a town like this." Marlowe (talking about Olympia) in a short story called Goldfish.”
― Raymond Chandler, Collected Stories

“She instantly lowered her face, staring at her lap, so that nothing was visible of her beyond the clusters of sunflower curls that framed the netted bun on top of her head. Intrigued by the curve of one plump cheek, he lifted her chin and made her look toward him, ignoring her flinch as he touched her.
His first impression was of green eyes, wide as a baby owl's and just as solemn. Dumpling cheeks, a straight nose, and a firm little mouth- all ordinary, and all in common female proportion. There was nothing notably strange about her features- and yet it was an odd face, the kind of face that looked out of burrows and tree-knots and hedgerows, unblinking, innocent and as old as time. If she'd had whiskers to twitch it wouldn't have surprised him, so strong was the impression of a small, prudent wild creature with dark brows like furry markings.
Strangely, she made him want to smile, as if he'd just pulled aside a branch and discovered a nightingale staring gravely back at him from its nest. He found himself reacting in the same way, consciously containing his moves and his voice, as if he might startle her away.
"Hullo," he said softly, giving her a light, suggestive chuck beneath her plump chin as he let her go.”
― Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire

“It was very damp and misty–which some people from outside the Pacific Northwest consider to be rain, but I do not. This is typical weather for the Pacific Northwest and Olympia. It is often wet in Olympia, but we have an average of only 49.95 inches a year of actual precipitation. That’s less than in Denver. In Olympia, the air is damp, and water collects and drips from everywhere. We do not get big downpours, but we get damp and spongy.

I don’t care. It helps the trees grow, and I climb the trees.”
― Ned Hayes, The Eagle Tree

“The floorboards creaked. She felt him come close behind her, a warmth, a presence that made her stiffen with awareness.
"You have remarkable character, Princess. Your eyebrows are lovely. Your chin is adorable and your eyes are gorgeous. Your figure is... utterly splendid. Just about too splendid, if I may be forgiven for saying so. It's been damned hard to remember I'm a gentleman.”
― Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire

“She managed to smile without smiling, her serious face a-shine with pleasure- real pleasure, which was something he recognized only because he'd never seen it before, not on any of the hundreds of faces which had smirked vainly or proudly or coyly at him as he played out his hero farce.
It was Sheridan who looked away, feeling unexpectedly awkward. She was outlandish and yet curiously lovely in her sparrowish, humble way. It made him uncomfortable. He was partial to beautiful women; he liked prettiness as well as the next man. But this was something different. Something that touched him in obscure and half-forgotten places. In his soul, he might have said, if he'd thought he still had one to stir.
Which he didn't, as he proved to himself by lowering his eyelids and enjoying the deliberate and easy kindling of more familiar sensations. Her dress, cut in a modish horizontal line across her bosom, revealed quite enough to assure him that nothing artificial amplified the swell of her breasts. The straight neckline made an inviting path, starting low on her shoulders and crossing the opulent expanse of skin at a point that on most females would have been perfectly modest, but which on Miss St Leger clearly showed the shadowy prelude to a luxurious cleavage.”
― Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire

“You must take this. I hadn't wanted to seem forward and press it upon you without knowing you truly wished to help me. Can you sell it? And I'll bring the rest of my personal jewelry along to provide for us on the way. This is only one of the smaller pieces."
The gold chain and setting flowed into Sheridan's palm. He glanced down at it, turned it over once and managed not to break into ecstatic smiles. He closed his fingers over the stone. "Princess," he said softly, taking her hand and pressing it against his fist, as if he could not bring himself to let her part with the jewel. "Are you quite sure?"
She bit her lip, hesitating, and for one awful moment he thought he had gone too far. Then she looked up and nodded.
He lifted her hand to his lips. "You are a brave and gallant lady.”
― Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire

“A transient wish crossed his mind; that he could have stayed around and introduced her to the innocent pleasures of...
But the devil with innocent pleasures. He dropped his head back against the wooden settle, closing his eyes. His feelings about Princess Field Mouse were as guilty as sin. He wasted a few moments in imagining a warm bed and his head pillowed on her delightfully plump breasts.
His lust for her was the most peculiar emotion, unlike anything a female had ever before inspired in him: a sort of passion for peace, a ferocious itch to have her and the bizarre impression that he'd somehow gain serenity from the act, that he could lose himself in her as if she were some primal element: a pathless forest or an endless plain instead of a chubby girl.”
― Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire

“How dare those men judge her? They’d created her. A woman can’t sell her body without clients to buy it.”
― Tiffany Reisz, The Red

“The first religious service in Seattle was by Bishop Demers, a Catholic, in 1852. The next was by Rev. Benjamin F. Close, a Methodist, who came to Olympia in the spring or early summer of 1853, and made several visits to Seattle during the summer and fall, and the same season Rev. J. F. DeVore located at Steilacoom. C. D. Boren donated two lots for a Methodist Episcopal church, and in November, 1853, Rev. D. E. Blaine and wife arrived.”
― Arthur A. Denny, Pioneer Days on Puget Sound