I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Tag Archives: Emily Bronte
July 2017 – More Quotes Added
We added new quotes to the site today. All of the quotes on this site list an author and a source. NONE of the quotes come from movies made from books.
Smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad. ~ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
A trusty companion halves the journey and doubles the courage. ~ The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. ~ Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
In case you’re wondering, the above IS the quote that made “it was a dark and stormy night” famous.
“I’ll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me.” ~ Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition. ~ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
But sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutterball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love. ~ Carrie by Stephen King
Her husband had archaic ideas about jewels; a man bought them for his wife in acknowledgment of things he could not gracefully utter. ~ A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Everything may be labelled—but everybody is not. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
“Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?” ~ The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
40 Love Quotes from Literature
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. ~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
“I do love you surely in a better way than he does.” He thought. “Yes—really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.” ~ A Room With A View by E. M. Forster
“God’s law is only Love.” ~ A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion. ~ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love. ~ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare
Love is a flower that grows in any soil, works its sweet miracles undaunted by autumn frost or winter snow, blooming fair and fragrant all the year, and blessing those who give and those who receive. ~ Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. ~ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends. ~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
“I don’t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want you.” ~ Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery
That which is loved may pass, but love hath no end. ~ Parables Of A Province by Gilbert Parker
The winds were warm about us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love. ~ The Amber Gods by Harriet Prescott Spofford
“I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.” ~ David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. ~ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Young men’s love, then, lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. ~ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
She had found her heart at last. Never having known its worth till now, she had never known the worth of his. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
It is best to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. ~ The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray
“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.” ~ The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
Maggie said that love was the flower of life, and blossomed unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it was found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration. ~ The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.” ~ Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare
“Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars.” ~ Parables Of A Province by Gilbert Parker
How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? ~ Adam Bede by George Eliot
Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover’s privilege. ~ The Little Minister by James M. Barrie
“Love of man for woman–love of woman for man. That’s the nature, the meaning, the best of life itself.” ~ Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
“I loved you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.” ~ The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
“We are all born for love,” said Morley. “It is the principle of existence, and its only end.” ~ Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli
He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. ~ The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.” ~ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
“The best of life is built on what we say when we’re in love. It isn’t nonsense, Katharine,” she urged, “it’s the truth, it’s the only truth.” ~ Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild! ~ The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth, gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge. And as he kissed her his heart strained again in his breast. He never intended to love her. But now it was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shrivelled and become void. ~ The Horse Dealer’s Daughter by D. H. Lawrence
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” ~ Emma by Jane Austen
“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance.” ~ A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. ~ Howards End by E. M. Forster
“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.” ~ Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boist’rous; and it pricks like thorn.” ~ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The course of true love never did run smooth. ~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
“Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it–the total passion for the total height–you’re incapable of anything less.” ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
“You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” ~ The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“Who, being loved, is poor?” ~ A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
Ready for more? See our entire love quote collection.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, was published in 1847 under the pen name of Ellis Bell. The novel was written between October 1845 and June 1846.
Bronte died in 1848 and Wuthuring Heights is her only novel. The review from the Atlas is typical of the response to the novel at the time of its publication.
Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story. There are evidences in every chapter of a sort of rugged power—an unconscious strength—which the possessor seems never to think of turning to the best advantage. The general effect is inexpressibly painful. We know nothing in the whole range of our fictitious literature which presents such shocking pictures of the worst forms of humanity.
More About Wuthering Heights
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Terror Quotes from Literature
I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror. ~ The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
He understood now why the world was strange, why horses galloped furiously, and why trains whistled as they raced through stations. All the comedy and terror of nightmare gripped his heart with pincers made of ice. ~ The Other Wing by Algernon Blackwood
“Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.” ~ The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Terror made me cruel. ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night, something that lay ‘twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart—and called him. ~ The Glamour of the Snow by Algernon Blackwood
“They all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night.” ~ The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
More Terror Quotes from Literature
Love Quotes from Literature
It’s not always easy to find just the right words. If you’re trying to decide what to put inside a Valentine’s Day card or letter, you know what I mean. Not to worry. These love quotes from literature will help.
“Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it–the total passion for the total height–you’re incapable of anything less.” ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love. ~ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare
If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
It is best to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. ~ The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray
Love is a flower that grows in any soil, works its sweet miracles undaunted by autumn frost or winter snow, blooming fair and fragrant all the year, and blessing those who give and those who receive. ~ Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Sympathy Quotes From Literature
The dictionary tells us that sympathy is a felling of pity or sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. And here’s how it’s used in quotes by the masters of literature.
My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine. ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I don’t know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break; and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter – the Eternity they have entered – where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.” ~ Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy – those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love. ~ The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
When Love Goes Bad
There’s love and then there’s love that’s gone bad. . .
“I loved her till they was a dryness like ashes inside me.” ~ The Night Horseman by Max Brand
“Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I’ll knock elsewhere, to see if they’ll disdain me.” ~ The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink. ~ Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Their lives were ruined,he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling. ~ Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
“You said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
See More Quotes from Literature about Love Gone Bad
By Any Other Name
We all know that Samuel Clemens wrote under the name of Mark Twain and that George Eliot was really Marian Evans. But did you ever wonder about the back-story? In Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms Carmela Ciuraru examines this issue. The book looks at the lives of of authors who used pen names. In addition to Twain and Eliot, there are chapters on the Bronte sisters, Lewis Carroll, O. Henry, George Orwell and others.
Exploring the fascinating stories of more than a dozen authorial impostors across several centuries and cultures, Carmela Ciuraru plumbs the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of fame. Part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, Nom de Plume is an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity.
Five Classic Novels Combined With a Touch of Horror
In honor of Halloween I put together this list of five classic novels that have been rewritten with a different twist. What happens when classic literature crosses with the horror genre? You get titles like . . . .
Jane Slayre, our plucky demon-slaying heroine, is a courageous orphan who spurns the detestable vampyre kin who raised her, sets out on the advice of her ghostly uncle to hone her skills as the fearless slayer she’s meant to be. When she takes a job as a governess at a country estate, she falls head-over-heels for her new master, Mr. Rochester, only to discover he’s hiding a violent werewolf in the attic–in the form of his first wife. Vampyres, zombies, and werewolves transform Charlotte Bronte’s unforgettable masterpiece into an eerie paranormal adventure that will delight and terrify.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield.
Heathcliff: Vampire of Wuthering Heights starts with a mysterious letter. Lockwood, a law clerk in London and amateur vampire stalker, must investigate, no matter the peril to himself. Traveling into the misty moors of Yorkshire, Lockwood finds the strange owner of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, and becomes trapped in the evil enveloping all of Yorkshire. Driven nearly to madness by his unrequited love for Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff roams the moors and is transformed into one of the undead, a vampire. But when he returns to claim his beloved, he finds that she too is forever changed and cannot become one of the undead. Heathcliff begins a cycle of madness that might satisfy his blood lust, but never his heart’s desire. Now he reveals the history of carnage and revenge to his most unwilling listener and next victim…
Heaven knows, we need never be ashamed of our wolfish cravings. . . .
In Grave Expectations bristly, sensitive, and meat-hungry Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind. But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!