Never mind women’s liberation; certainly she was in full accord with it, yet there were basic truths that common sense wouldn’t let one deny, and one of them was that men didn’t like to be beaten.  -Belva Plains

The child cried because the world was fearsome; the place was strange; the night was dark.  -Belva Plains

She was the marrying kind if ever a woman was.  -Belva Plains

. . .to be idle all day in expectation of the night was to be nothing but a courtesan, which was, in spite of being an old fashioned word, an apt one.  -Belva Plains

What then?  She would not say, did not understand, knew only that something powerful had taken hold of her, that she felt eased while she was drawn to him, and yet that she feared this thing, so fearfully unfamiliar.

-Belva Plains