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But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended.

Barbara Mertz

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Barbara Mertz
Age: 85 †
Born: 1927
Born: September 29
Died: 2013
Died: August 8
Archaeologist
Author
Egyptologist
Novelist
Writer
Canton
Illinois
Elizabeth Peters
Barbara Michaels
Barbara Louise Mertz
Equally
Dust
Instinct
Scholarly
Clutter
Instincts
Offended

More quotes by Barbara Mertz

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Dogs can be made to feel guilty about anything, including the sins of their owners. Cats refuse to take the blame for anything - including their own sins.
Barbara Mertz
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Nefret had always had an uncanny ability to read his thoughts. 'Did she cry?' she asked sweetly. 'And then you kissed her? You shouldn't have done that. I'm sure you meant well, but kissing someone out of pity is always a mistake.
Barbara Mertz
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Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, and then I have to go back to page 42 and fix things. I'm not recommending it as a way to write. It's very sloppy, but it works for me.
Barbara Mertz
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Getting an idea for a book is not the problem, but you need 300 ideas - an idea a page.
Barbara Mertz
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I would never have supposed that inexperienced girl was capable of such cold-blooded, calculating manipulation!
Barbara Mertz
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A fondness for martyrdom, especially of the verbal variety, is common to the young.
Barbara Mertz
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I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the respected patriarch of an ordinary English family. Very boring, Emerson.
Barbara Mertz
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Emerson,' I said, choosing my words with care, 'it is a sheer drop from the cleft down to the base of the cliff. If you are bent on breaking your arm or your leg or your neck or all three, find a place closer to home so we won't have to carry you such a distance.
Barbara Mertz
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Many persons lead lives of crushing boredom.
Barbara Mertz
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Your trousers are on fire. I would have told you, but you so dislike advice.
Barbara Mertz
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If someone lies down and invites you to trample upon him, you are a remarkable individual if you decline the invitation.
Barbara Mertz
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Exaggeration is the cheapest form of humor.
Barbara Mertz
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It is easier to counterfeit old age than youth.
Barbara Mertz
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kissing someone out of pity is always a mistake.
Barbara Mertz
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You are softening toward the young rascal because he is ill, and because he says he likes cats. It is an engaging quality, Emerson. That depends, said Emerson darkly, on how he likes them.
Barbara Mertz
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Cats always made up to the people who hated them the most. Depending on how you chose to look at it, it was a touching manifestation of trust, or a malicious pleasure in human discomfort.
Barbara Mertz
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Cats always pick the laps of the people who don't like them.
Barbara Mertz
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I am so tired of ruggedly handsome heroes. I don't know too many ruggedly handsome people who are necessarily nice people. In fact, the beautiful people have a big handicap because they rely too much on their appearance and don't bother to become interesting.
Barbara Mertz
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..he continues to cling to the forlorn hope that I will turn into one of those swooning females...and fling myself squeeling at him whenever anything happens. Like all men, he clings to his illusions.
Barbara Mertz
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I would not be at all surprised to find that it was for gold that Cain committed the first murder. (It happened a very long time ago, and Holy Writ, though no doubt divinely inspired, is a trifle careless about details. God is not a historian).
Barbara Mertz