“I can't breathe. I'm joing the Rational Dress Society the very moment we are back in London,and I fully intend to leave their pamphlets under Mother's pillow and tucked into her corsets.”

“Carving?""Your name. My back. I can't fucking wait." Jane whistled under her breath. "Do I get to do it?" He barked a laugh. "No!" "Come on. I'm a surgeon, I'm good with knives.”

“But I'm worse. I'm a child playing dress-up, who can't even recognize herself under her own costume.”

“My baby is five. She falls asleep in my arms . . . . Her breath is warm on my face, all that is alive and warm and breathing inside of her now, falling upon me, and I can't capture it, hold it, this, her life now, me in this moment. She is leaving me, she's growing up and moving away from me, and she stirs and I sweep back the crop of the golden ringlets. Stay, Little One, stay. Love's a deep wound and what is a mother without a child and why can't I hold on to now forever and her here and me here and why does time snatch away a heart I don't think mine can beat without? Why do we all have to grow old? Why do we have to keep saying good-bye?”

“She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.”

“So proper for a circus girl," Mme. Padva says with with a gleam in her eye. "We shall have to loosen those corset laces if we intend to keep you an intimate dinner company.""I expected the corset unlacing would take place after dinner," Celia says mildly, earning a chorus of laughter."We shall keep Miss Bowen as intimate company regardless of the state of her corset," Chandresh says. "Make a note of that," he adds, waving a hand at Marco."Miss Bowen's corset is duly noted, sir," Marco replies, and the laghter bubbles over the table again.”