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I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.

Barbara Mertz

In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.)
BARBARA MERTZ

Bed Cat Silence
Spring is always cruel, with its false promise of resurrection.
BARBARA MERTZ

Promise Resurrection Spring
Writing is like a bird-watcher watching for birds: the stories are there: you just have to train yourself to look for them.
BARBARA MERTZ

Bird Looks Writing
Martyrdom is often the result of excessive gullibility.
BARBARA MERTZ

Martyrdom Results Sacrifice
Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as human beings.
BARBARA MERTZ

Children Feel Privacy
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

Distance Home Three
I don’t think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn’t someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven’t, I claim the credit myself.)
BARBARA MERTZ

Credit Men Thinking
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

Cat Likes Quality
Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments.
BARBARA MERTZ

Gentleman Men Pay
The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal – or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.
BARBARA MERTZ

Cat Treats Way
Marriage, in my view, should be a balanced stalemate between equal adversaries.
BARBARA MERTZ

Marriage Should Views
A man asking for help ought to at least give directions.
BARBARA MERTZ

Asking Giving Help Men
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

Blame Cat Dog
Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.
BARBARA MERTZ

Facts Prejudice Reputation
stereotypes are awfully misleading. There are typical librarians, but not all librarians are typical.
BARBARA MERTZ

Librarian Stereo Typical
I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle…. Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody)
BARBARA MERTZ

Husband Independent Intelligent

I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.

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I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.

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