Quotes & Sayings About A Mistress

There was never a tutor that did professly teach Felicity, though that be the mistress of all other sciences. Nor did any of us study these things but as aliena, which we ought to have studied as our enjoyments. We studied to inform our knowledge, but knew not for what end we so studied. And for lack of aiming at a certain end we erred in the manner. Howbeit there we received all those seeds of knowledge that were afterwards improved; and our souls were awakened to a discerning of their faculties, and exercise of their powers. — Thomas Traherne

A tramp, therefore, is a celibate from the moment when he takes to the road. He is absolutely without hope of getting a wife, a mistress, or any kind of woman except - very rarely, when he can raise a few shillings - a prostitute.
It is obvious what the results of this must be: homosexuality, for instance, and occasional rape cases. But deeper than these there is the degradation worked in a man who knows that he is not even considered fit for marriage. The sexual impulse, not to put it any higher, is a fundamental impulse, and starvation of it can be almost as demoralizing as physical hunger. The evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spiritually. And there can be no doubt that sexual starvation contributes to this rotting process. Cut off from the whole race of women, a tramp feels himself degraded to the rank of a cripple or a lunatic. No humiliation could do more damage to a man's self-respect. — George Orwell

I was ordered to go for flowers, that my mistress's house might be decorated for an evening party. I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons, while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach; presumptuous in him, and dangerous to the masters. — Harriet Ann Jacobs

A man of the Night's Watch lives his life for the realm. Not for a king, nor a lord, nor the honor of this house or that house, neither for gold nor glory nor a woman's love, but for the realm, and all the people in it. A man of the Night's Watch takes no wife and fathers no sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor. And you are the only sons we shall ever know. — George R R Martin

Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you. — David Benioff

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made. — Voltaire

You think I should use magick like mine to open a tomb?" Mari asked in a scoffing tone. Mistress of bluffing, working it here. "That'd be like calling you in to lift a feather. — Kresley Cole

Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot. — Stephen Fry

Facts and Observations #1 If people think you're dishonored, it's no different from actually having been dishonored, except you still don't know anything. #2 When you've been ruined, there are only two options: death or marriage. #3 Since I am gravely healthy, the first option isn't likely. #4 On the other hand, ritual self-sacrifice in Iceland cannot be ruled out. #5 Lady Berwick advises marriage and says Lord St. Vincent is "bred to the bill." Since she once made the same remark about a stud horse she and Lord Berwick bought for their stable, I have to wonder if she's looked in his mouth. #6 Lord St. Vincent reportedly has a mistress. #7 The word "mistress" sounds like a cross between mistake and mattress. "We've — Lisa Kleypas

A man has carried off your mistress, a man has seduced your wife, a man has dishonored your daughter; he has rendered the whole life of one who had the right to expect from heaven that portion of happiness God has promised to every one of his creatures, an existence of misery and infamy; and you think you are avenged because you send a ball through the head, or pass a sword through the breast, of that man who has planted madness in your brain, and despair in your heart. — Alexandre Dumas

Noble!" "What?" He was annoyed at her interruption. Didn't she understand that he was trying to help her organize her life into something satisfactory? "I am not the one chained naked to my mistress's bed with a broken man part. — Katie MacAlister

She was a Mistress who needed a Master. Who needed him. — Joey W. Hill

To Fate, a fickle mistress whose sense of justice is exceeded only by her sense of humor. — Teresa Medeiros

A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world. — Andre Maurois

Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance. — Kate Morton

You're not a Dom, not a Master, Josh," she said. "You've never even been close. You're a submissive. A gorgeous, incredibly sensual submissive that any Mistress in her right mind would cherish forever. You were doing as your Mistress told you to do, and she used you cruelly. I won't let you blame yourself for anything, Josh, except maybe for not recognizing it sooner, because you are an intelligent man. Your inly crime is in denying your own worth, because she made you doubt yours. A Mistress doesn't do that, Josh. — Joey W. Hill

Liberty is a harsh mistress. You cannot pick and choose what you like and dislike about her. Liberty will not change her principles for you, no matter how much you claim to love her. She will stand fast in her demands for total acceptance. If you can't receive her, she will recognize you as a false lover and leave you. And when you hear that door slam, it will take every tear in your eye, every ounce of blood in your veins, and all the nerve in your heart to win her back. — William H. Masters

It is easier for an artful Man, who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love hath ten thousand Griefs, Impatiencies and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits. — Joseph Addison

But the more I succeeded in the world's eyes, the more I realized that that success itself was only another prison, fashioned by the values of this world. More wealth only demanded I maintain that wealth. More status only begged me to rise higher. And fame ... What a cruel and jealous mistress fame is. — Ted Dekker

After reading the salary, I've decided that I must refuse. The reason I have to refuse a salary like that is I would be able to do what I've always wanted to do- -get a wonderful mistress, put her up in an apartment, buy her nice things.. With the salary you have offered, I could actually do that, and I know what would happen to me. I'd worry about her, what she's doing; I'd get into arguments when I come home, and so on. All this bother would make me uncomfortable and unhappy. I wouldn't be able to do physics well, and it would be a big mess! What I've always wanted to do would be bad for me, so I've decided that I can't accept your offer. — Richard Feynman

She regards me quietly and then she quotes something Mistress Coyle once said to me. "We are the choices we make." It takes me a second to realize she's just said goodbye. — Patrick Ness

I don't think there is just one Louis Vuitton woman. That is why, for the fall/winter 2011 show, I loved the idea of lots of different characters - a wife, a mistress, a girlfriend - stepping out of the row of hotel elevators. — Marc Jacobs

When a man marries his mistress it creates a job opportunity. — James Goldsmith

I think I'm living in the wrong century. I would have made a great courtesan. Not a mistress - I could never be kept - but a courtesan with my own rules. — Marie Helvin

When a man takes a mistress, he doesn't turn around and divorce his wife. — Arthur Golden

Like a goddess on her azure hill, the star of my ambition, the mistress of my dream; a thing apart, that we can worship, but not touch; a wild desire, that, in the madness of the thought, soars higher in its dignity, and leaves me weeping in the dust. — William Batchelder Greene

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. — William Shakespeare

There are certain topicks which are never exhausted. Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be enamoured; it meets them, however often they occur, with the same ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his mistress, and parts from them with the same regret when they can no longer be enjoyed. — Samuel Johnson

They strolled toward town, stopping now and then to let him catch his breath and to gaze upward, for the west Kansas sky is black velvet on clear, cool December nights, and the Milky Way is strung across it like the diamond necklace of a crooked banker's mistress. — Mary Doria Russell

I imagine that the goddess of Love has come down from Olympus to visit a mortal. So as not to die of cold in this modern world of ours, she wraps her sublime body in great heavy furs and warms her feet on the prostrate body of her lover. I imagine the favorite of this beautiful despot, who is whipped when his mistress grows tired of kissing him, and whose love only grows more intense the more he is trampled underfoot. I shall call the picture Venus in Furs — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The master and mistress of the house and the rest of the Blood -even the Crux himself- brought our food, poured the wine, did our bidding. The centerpiece was a roasted stag. crowned with gilded antlers and stuffed with songbirds; they had hunted well. We were forbidden to kill the deer that fattened on our coleworts and stole our grain, and the venison tasted all the better for the salt of revenge. — Sarah Micklem

Stephan was secretive and a liar, but he was a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things to Stephan - or so he made her believe. — Jean Rhys

Cultural relevance can be a cruel mistress. — Carl R. Trueman

Justice required resort to law and that could be a fickle mistress, subject always to the whims and prejudices of those who administered the laws. — Frank Herbert

When a man leaves his mistress, he runs the risk of being betrayed two or three times daily. — Stendhal

And what do you really do? asked Tiffany.
The thin witch hesitatied for a moment, and then:
We look to ... the edges, said Mistress Weatherwax. There's a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong ... an' they need watchin'. We watch 'em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That's important. — Terry Pratchett

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

I am a Mistress to others; you are the Master of me. Of my heart, mind and soul. — Joey W. Hill

SILVIUS: How many actions most ridiculous/Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?
CORIN: Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
SILVIUS: O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!/If thou remember'st not the slightest folly/That ever love did make thee run into,/Thou hast not loved:/Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,/Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,/Thou hast not loved ... — William Shakespeare

Fashion is a cruel mistress. — Hester Browne

I'm suggesting that you let someone inside that empty room you call a heart. Whether you make her your wife or your mistress, a man's bed is decidedly warmer if there's a fire burning in something other than his cock. — Sabrina Jeffries

And do you not think less of me for making my fortune in
such a way?" After all, her own sister did.
He gave her an odd look. "There is no shame in being the
mistress of a king. It's a position of great power and influence. I think less of Louis for letting you go. — Jenna Maclaine

(The tree bend over. Suddenly, a hiss and a meow sounded an instant before two cats darted off across the backyard.)
Look, Lanie, it's Mr. Tomcat come to save me from my celibacy. Oh, help me, Moon Mistress. Whatever am I to do with the attentions of such an unwanted suitor! Help me quick, before he kills me with my allergies. (Grace) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

European nation with highest politician/lover ratio: Few European states can hope to compete with France and Italy in this department, and the two nations have been battling for European political lothario supremacy for over thirty years. The contest has been increasingly acrimonious since 1998, when France was initially the clear winner but somehow "lost" sixty-eight illicit lovers in the recount and had to concede defeat. The following year was no less rocked in scandal, when the Italians were disqualified for "stretching the boundaries" of their elected representatives to include senior civil servants - and the crown was tossed back to France. No one was quite prepared for the disgraceful scandal the following year when it was discovered that one French minister had no mistress at all and "loved his wife," a shocking revelation that led to his resignation and ultimately to the fall of the government. — Jasper Fforde

Obey the muse, Liz said. She's a fickle mistress. — Gayle Forman

Oh, how our good knight reveled in this speech, and more than ever when he came to think of the name that he should give his lady! As the story goes, there was a very good=looking farm girl who lived near by, with whom he had once been smitten, although it is generally believed that she never knew or suspected it. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and it seemed to him that she was the one upon whom he should bestow the title of mistress of his thoughts. For her he wished a name that should not be incongruous with his own and that would convey the suggestion of a princess or a great lady; and, accordingly, he resolved to call her "Dulcinea del Toboso," she being a native of that place. A musical name to his ears, out of the ordinary and significant, like the others he had chosen for himself and his appurtenances. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

An incident occurred while Cato was speaking which caused much amusement at his expense. A letter was brought in for Caesar, and Cato immediately accused him of being in touch with the conspirators. He challenged him to read the note out loud. Caesar simply passed it across: it was a love letter from Servilia, Caesar's mistress at the time and Cato's half-sister. Cato threw it back angrily with the words: Take it, you drunken idiot. — Anthony Everitt

I have a mistress. Now is the part where I have to tell you I have a mistress and you stop liking me. If you liked me to begin with. I have a pretty, young, very young mistress, and her name is Andie. — Gillian Flynn

The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and a determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both. — Frederick Douglass

When I was girl by Nilus stream
I watched the deserts stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,
Learned all his dreaming from eyes.
I bore in Greece a burning name,
And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,
And mistress to a Medici.
And have you heard (and I have heard)
Of puzzled men with decorous mien,
Who judged - the wench knew far too much -
And burnt her on the Salem green? — Adelaide Crapsey

[G]enerosity ... is the mistress and queen that gives lustre to every virtue, as it is not hard to prove. Where could one find a man, however powerful and rich, who isn't blamed if he is mean? And who, though not appreciated for his many other qualities, doesn't earn praise by his generosity? Liberality on its own makes a worthy man; and that can't be achieved by high birth, courtliness, wisdom, nobility, wealth, strength, chivalry, boldness, authority, beauty, or anything else. But just as the rose is more lovely than any other flower when it opens fresh and new, so where liberality appears it surpasses all other virtues and increases five hundred times the qualities it finds in a worthy, upright man. — Chretien De Troyes

Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader's mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character... The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future...Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen's greatness. — Virginia Woolf

How may paintings have preserved the image of a divine beauty which in its natural manifestation has been rapidly overtaken by time or death. Thus, the work of the painter is nobler than that of nature, its mistress. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Large eyes were admired in Greece, where they still prevail. They are the finest of all when they have the internal look, which is not common. The stag or antelope eye of the Orientals is beautiful and lamping, but is accused of looking skittish and indifferent. "The epithet of 'stag-eyed,'" says Lady Wortley Montgu, speaking of a Turkish love-song, "pleases me extremely; and I think it a very lively image of the fire and indifference in his mistress' eye. — Leigh Hunt

I am not covetous, but as ambitious as ever any of my sex was, is, or can be; which makes, that though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First; and although I have neither power, time, not occasion to conquer the world as Alexander and Caesar did; yet rather than not be mistress of one, since Fortune and Fates would give me none, I have made a world of my own; for which nobody, I hope, will blame me, since it is in everyone's power to do the like. — Margaret Cavendish

The carved images on the early Minoan sealstones are tantalising, inscrutable. The Nature Goddess is yanked from the soil like a snake or a sheaf of barley; the Mistress of the Animals suckles goats and gazelles. There are male Adorants certainly - up on tiptoe, their outstretched arms hoisted in a kind of heil, their bodies arched suggestively, pelvis forward, before the Goddess - but there are no masculine deities, not a single one in sight. No woman worth her salt, one might think, could fail to be intrigued. — Alison Fell

We don't really want to get what we think that we want.
I am married to a wife and relationship with her are cold and I have a mistress. And all the time I dream oh my god if my wife were to disappear - I'm not a murderer but let us say- that it will open up a new life with the mistress.Then, for some reason, the wife goes away, you lose the mistress.
You thought this is all I want, when you have it there, you turn out it was a much more complex situation.
It was not to live with the mistress, but to keep her as a distance as on object of desire about which you dream.
This is not an excessive example, I claim this is how things function. We don't really want what we think we desire — Slavoj Zizek

Those who would live beyond their nature-given span lose their framework, and with it lose a proper sense of relationship to those who are younger, gaining only the resentment of youth for encroaching on its careers and resources. The fact that there is a limited right time to do the rewarding things in our lives is what creates the urgency to do them. Otherwise, we might stagnate in procrastination. The very fact that at our backs, as the poet cautions his coy mistress, we "always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near" enhances the world and makes the time priceless. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. — G.K. Chesterton

A woman is never so happy as when she is being wooed. Then she is mistress of all she surveys, the cynosure of all eyes, until that day of days when she sails down the aisle, a vision in white, lovely as the stefanotis she carries, borne translucent on her father's manly arm to be handed over to her new father-surrogate. If she is clever, and if her husband has the time and the resources, she will insist on being wooed all her life; more likely she will discover that marriage is not romantic, that husbands forget birthdays and aniversaries and seldom pay compliments, are often perfunctory. — Germaine Greer

Money is a jealous mistress If you want money you must want only money ... I must tell you the one secret of life, there is only one: everything is a jealous mistress, everything is terribly possessive, and, by God, we want to be terribly possessed if we want to get somewhere - and we want to be terribly possessed - anyhow; or what is life? — Christina Stead

Karma is a cruel mistress. — Kelley York

I'm wide open to getting married, but actors are not easy people to date. You end up sharing that person with this other mistress that is their career. I very much like the traditional courtship method of making a date. That's what they do in normal places, but Hollywood's not normal. — Seth MacFarlane

Stop. That was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened."
"No?"
"No."
"I could offer you more."
"What?"
"Power. Access. Rewards. You'd need be available only to me."
"Are you asking me to be your mistress?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my God."
"Is that a yes?"
"No, Ethan, Jesus. Definitely not. — Chloe Neill

What kind of moron wants to be a gladiator? — Kate Quinn

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress. — Anita Baker

Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her. — Christian Nestell Bovee

There were nights for instance, especially in August, where the view of the full moon from the top of the Acropolis hill or from a high terrace could steal your breath away. The moon would slide over the clouds like a seducing princess dressed in her finest silvery silk. And the sky would be full of stars that trembled feebly, like servants that bowed before her. During those nights under the light of the August full moon, the city of Athens would become an enchanted kingdom that slept lazily under the sweet light of its ethereal mistress. — Effrosyni Moschoudi

Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?"
"It may be for some, father, but not for us. Axl and I wish to have again the happy moments we shared together. To be robbed of them is as if a thief came in the night and took what's most precious from us."
"Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn't that so, mistress?"
"We'll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn't it the life we've shared? — Kazuo Ishiguro

But what have I to prove? It should be you wrapped up in Zmey Gorinich's coils, proving that you are not a monster, that you are worthy of me!"
"Have I not proven it? Have I not taken you out of your starving city and fed you, clothed you in fine things, taught you how to listen and how to speak, brought you to a place where you are a mistress, a tsarevna adored and worshipped, made love to, your skin dusted with jewels? Did I not dower myself? Did I not come to you on my knees with a kingdom in my hand? — Catherynne M Valente

Through all history, from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs have fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history, to the end, as long as men believe in God that army must still march and fall, recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of humanity, strong only in the confidence of their cause. — George William Curtis

...fortune was a fickle mistress. — Lorraine Heath

Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. — Joseph Addison

Mistress: Something between a mister and a mattress. — Jim Backus

It comes for you," Lindsay repeated, her voice hideously broken. "You will pass into the sea nothing more than a blackened scaffold, and your dark mistress will not recall your name, for she has swallowed a million of your lecherous kind before you, and she will swallow a million more before she's done. — Matt Tomerlin

I am a king's daughter, And if I cared to care, The moon that has no mistress Would flutter in my hair. No one dares to cherish What I choose to crave. Never have I hungered, For that I did not have I am a kings daughter, And I grow old within The prison of my person, The shackles of my skin. And I would run away And beg from door to door, Just to see your shadow Once, and never more. — Peter S. Beagle

Medicine is my life, but literature is my mistress, and mysteries and poetry are my drugs of choice. — John A. Vanek

Your wife doesn't want to hear a word about how hot your mistress is, and vice versa. — John Benjamin Hickey

One does not imagine the presence of a dog in the Garden of Eden, for had there been, no doubt he would have given adequate protection to his mistress and saved her descendants from all subsequent trouble. — Kate Sanborn

The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is.
A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name? — Ursula K. Le Guin

Women, he would say, are not Muses. Muses are Muses. To confuse one with the other is to mistake the Devouring Void for the Seminal Light. Earthly Women and the Muses are ancient, sworn enemies. The battlefield is the Creative Male. On the one side is the encampment of Discordia, of Diana, of Venus located in his Heart and in his Groin. On the other is the Bastion of Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania, in his Brain and in his Mind. The Muses are tolerant and understanding of border raids, skirmishes, and harassing maneuvers. Throughout the history of the Male Light, there have been few painters, few writers, who have not had a She Who Must Be Accommodated. For some it was their mothers. For many their wives, their mistresses, their girlfriends. For many it was their daughters, a favourite waitress, a stripper, a whore. To the Muses, they are all one. Mother, whore, wife, daughter, stripper, waitress, mistress, girlfriend. — Dave Sim

No!" he cried and his face pinched with frustration and pain. "I don't want to hear more reasons why we shouldn't be together. No more confessions to explain why you want to run away from what we share."
"Julian," she attempted to interrupt again, but he held up a trembling hand.
His dark gaze held hers. "I have moved heaven and earth to bring you back to me. I refuse to let you leave again. You are mine and you shall be mine for the rest of my life. Not as my mistress, but as my wife. And if you don't say yes, I shall be forced to drag you into Hyde Park and make love to you in plain view of everyone. Then you will have to accept my proposal in order to save your reputation." His face softened. "I love you, Cecilia. — Jess Michaels

Painting is like having a bad mistress who spends and spends and it's never enough ... I tell myself that even if a tolerable study comes out of it from time to time, it would have been cheaper to buy it from somebody else. — Vincent Van Gogh

Have I shocked you, mistress? Do you still believe you can heal him? A virgin who's seen nothing of the world, a man who's seen the very worst of it?" John demanded, his voice hard edged. — Lecia Cornwall

Sazed?" she asked, peeking back out into the hallway.
The steward paused, turning back. "Yes, Mistress Vin?"
"Kelsier," Vin said quietly. "He's a good man, isn't he?"
Sazed smiled. "A very good man, Mistress. One of the best I've known."
Vin nodded slightly. "A good man..." she said softly. "I don't think I've ever known one of those before. — Brandon Sanderson

Chess is a good mistress but a bad master. — Gerald Abrahams

Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world that I clamour for you. You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination
the most powerful in the world. — Violet Trefusis

My mother was a good mistress to her servants, taking care of them in their sicknesses, not sparing any cost she was able to bestow for their recovery. — Margaret Cavendish

Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never, ever sleeps. — Tahereh Mafi

Still," he added firmly, "I think you'd best drink no more of it, or ye won't get back up the stairs." He tilted the glass and deliberately drained it himself, then handed the empty goblet to Laoghaire without looking at her. "Take that back, will ye, lass," he said casually. "It's grown late; I believe I'll see Mistress Beauchamp to her chamber." And putting a hand under my elbow, he steered me toward the archway, leaving the girl staring after us with an expression that made me relieved that looks in fact cannot kill. — Diana Gabaldon

I am humbly following in your footsteps and having a row with the Government over the iniquity of the Marriage Tax in the form of supertax ... our incomes being added together we are liable for supertax which we are refusing to pay on the grounds of morality as I consider in a Christian country it is an immoral and outrageous act to tax me because I am living in Holy matrimony instead of as my husband's mistress. — Marie Stopes

It is comparatively easy to leave a mistress, but very hard to be left by one. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Mistress Eustacia sent me to have my bandage changed. He looked disgruntled. She adjusted the pot so that it wasn't directly over the fire then wiped her hands on her apron. He sat down impatiently on the bench against the wall. Annabel rummaged through the shelves until she found a container of honey and some bandages, smiling to herself at his reluctant compliance. Then — Melanie Dickerson

Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride. — Alexander Pope

Anger, even when it punishes the faults of delinquents, ought not to precede reason as its mistress, but attend as a handmaid at the back of reason, to come to the front when bidden. For once it begins to take control of the mind, it calls just what it does cruelly. — George William Curtis

Her tongue flailed around all the questions stammering to get out, and she finally landed on: "When did you have time to take a mistress?"
His smile faltered. "Don't talk about Cress like that."
"What?"
"Oh - wait! You mean Darla. I won her in a hand of cards."
Cinder gawked.
"I thought she'd make a nice gift for Iko."
"You ... what?"
"For her replacement body?"
"Um."
"Because Darla's an escort-droid? — Marissa Meyer

Aye, a very bad business indeed. A new sort of way this, for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's head, is not it, Miss Elliot? This is breaking a head and giving a plaister truly! — Jane Austen

It quite often makes me feel sad that painting's like a bad mistress one might have, who's always spending, spending and it's never enough.. [Letter 630, Arles, 23 June 1888] — Vincent Van Gogh

I could never have a mistress, because I couldn't bear to tell the story of my life all over again. — Oscar Levant