Quotes

I love literature

[thesebeauteousforms]

the city as show: that city of the magical light in which I could walk without shadow.

The Mimic Men - V.S. Naipaul (1967)

[thesebeauteousforms]

I leaned over the steering wheel and tried to cry, but I couldn't. The pain remained, unreleased, the nameless pain from which one feels there can be no way out, and one knows that despair is absolute.

The Mimic Men - V.S. Naipaul (1967)

[thesebeauteousforms]

So they remained friends, in the awful unspoken intimacy of the once-married.

"Two Blue Birds" - D.H. Lawrence (1927)

[thesebeauteousforms]

But he suddenly started up, and, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (1891)

[thesebeauteousforms]

Hypochondria has that wont, to rise in the midst of thousands - dark as Doom, pale as Malady, and well nigh strong as Death. Her comrade and victim thinks to be happy one moment - "Not so," says she; "I come." And she freezes the blood in his heart, and beclouds the light in his eye.

Villette - Charlotte Brontë (1853)

[thesebeauteousforms]

I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter.

Villette - Charlotte Brontë (1853)

[thesebeauteousforms]

All is not lost; the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

Paradise Lost - John Milton (1667)

[thesebeauteousforms]

For what he bids I do; though I have lost

Much lustre of my native brightness, lost

To be beloved of God, I have not lost

To love

Paradise Regained - John Milton (1671)

[thesebeauteousforms]

My tears do not flow so easily as they ought - they come almost like men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten everyone about me.

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (1860)

[thesebeauteousforms]

... as whimsically as another girl had done in some other dream.

Ada - Vladimir Nabokov (1969)

[thesebeauteousforms]

Still later a tinge of repulsion (the same repulsion he felt in regard to his own mortality) became admixed to the love and the esteem; but, on the other hand, the older he grew the more firmly he felt that he would give his life for his father, at a moment's notice, with pride and pleasure, in any circumstance imaginable.

Ada - Vladimir Nabokov (1969)

[thesebeauteousforms]

When he was freshest and truest, he loved me.

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (1850)

[thesebeauteousforms]

But we were at home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing.

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (1850)

[thesebeauteousforms]

I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

"Whoso list to hunt" - Sir Thomas Wyatt (~1530s)

[thesebeauteousforms]

existence itself is a prison, the body its walls, and eternity has become the real home... life is a form of exile; the pain of individual consciousness resolves finally into the ache of the soul's homesickness for death.

Charlotte Brontë's World of Death - Robert Keefe (1979)

[thesebeauteousforms]

I used to think what a delight it would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to heaven's reckless winds.

Villette - Charlotte Brontë (1855)

[thesebeauteousforms]

Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs, where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.

Villette - Charlotte Brontë (1855)