Which crime has the female sex committed to be sentenced to the harsh necessity which consists of being locked up all life either as a prisoner or a slave? I call the nuns prisoners and the married women slaves.

I was scarcely the first, nor the only current, girl of impressive derivation to be unceremoniously thrust through the iron gate at the entrance of Le Murate by parents whose aspirations for their daughters did not include marriage. Our paths to the convent were varied, but no matter. We all wound up in the same habit.

She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops… feeling them hit her body… trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious about nature.

He was an indecent man, I told myself - prayerfully - and then I prayed for him to become decent.

Ladies glisten, men perspire, horses sweat.-Early Nun Quote, The Old Ursuline Convent (1727) New Orleans, LA

When just a kid, moved back to Canada and looking for a taste of England, I’d picked up a book of my Gram’s, a dog-eared romance from the ’sixties about English hospital ‘sisters’ trying to get it on with the doctors, and thought it very shocking behaviour for nuns.

She was tall and dark-skinned and looked like a Nigerian sculpture. She moved like a lioness, her every step bristling with suppressed violence.

...some of the best love poems have been written by monks and nuns...

Well, OK then." He narrowed his eyes. "How about you? Do you have any...romances I should know about?""Nope. Not one.""Well, good. Excellent. There'll be plenty of time for boys when you leave college and become a nun."She smiled. "I'm glad you have such ambitious dreams for me.