"The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful"
About this Quote
“Ready and hopeful” is a pairing that avoids easy sentiment. Ready implies preparation, realism, even a little fatigue: she’s learned patterns, survived before. Hopeful prevents that readiness from curdling into cynicism. Together they read like a practiced survival philosophy, not a motivational poster.
Barr’s era matters. A 19th-century novelist writing in a world of constrained options for women, frequent bereavement, and economic precarity, she’s speaking from a culture where “fate” was a daily vocabulary word. The line doesn’t romanticize hardship; it claims a narrow but potent sovereignty: attitude as agency. Its intent is not to deny inevitability, but to make it less humiliating. If the future is nonnegotiable, meeting it with hope becomes a form of self-respect - and, subtly, a rebuke to anyone who benefits from others feeling powerless.
Quote Details
| Topic | Hope |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Barr, Amelia. (2026, January 15). The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-inevitable-has-always-found-me-ready-and-149768/
Chicago Style
Barr, Amelia. "The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-inevitable-has-always-found-me-ready-and-149768/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-inevitable-has-always-found-me-ready-and-149768/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.











