Thursday: “It was no fun for him if I did not scream and beg.” – Sherri Tepper. Book and context?

The book is Jinian Footseer. The context is Jinian’s discovery as a child that her sadistic brother would leave her alone once she decided she didn’t care what he did to her.

Friday: “To drink the dose at the first intermission, drift away into death with glorious music accompanying her—” Lackey. Context?

Fire Rose. Rose (the “Beauty” of this retelling of Beauty and the Beast) is close to despair before her journey to the west coast, but the thought of hearing Caruso sing makes her decide to postpone her half-planned suicide.

Saturday: “You know the sort of kind heart: it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything … “ Tolkien. Story?

“Leaf by Niggle,” a short story in Tree and Leaf. This has nothing to do with Middle-Earth, and in fact Tolkien wrote of the time it was being composed (1938-9): “At that time they had reached Bree, and I had then no more notion than they had what had become of Gandalf or who Strider was; and I had begun to despair of surviving to find out.” Kudos to Larry Enright who recognized Niggle.

Sunday: “CAROLINA CONGRESSMAN COPS BEAUTY CROWN.” Heinlein. Book and context?

Methuselah’s Children. Started as a short story in Astounding, 1941 and was expanded to a 35 cent paperback book in 1960. The quote is from a series of newspaper headlines allegedly published in 1969, during “the crazy years” according to Heinlein’s future history timeline.  Some of the others are:
COURT ORDERS STATE HOUSE SOLD
IOWA RAISES VOTING AGE TO FORTY-ONE
N. Y. YOUTH MEET DEMANDS UPPER LIMIT ON FRANCHISE
LOS ANGELES HI-SCHOOL MOB DEFIES SCHOOL BOARD

Monday: “They knew they were doomed, but they did the right thing anyway, trying to make the world a little better.” Duane. Context?

The Door into Fire. This is a part of Herewiss’s last conversation with the Goddess.

Tuesday: “There is no one right way.” Lackey. How many different places can you find this?

This is the Valdemarian credo, and it is all over the Valdemar series. I copied it from Exile’s Valor, when the court was trying to prepare for Selany’s wedding.

Wednesday: “She had forgotten a lot about planets, Marna decided less than a day after returning to Riya.” Bowling. Context?

From Homecoming. Marna has spent her last two centuries on an isolation satellite, and is not at all used to being rained on (literally) or in fact any kind of weather.