Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before ‘the writing on the wall’ and unable to read the characters or make known the interpretation.
Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure – you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.
Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go – embrace me, Jane.
The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him.
I am neither a man nor a woman but an author.
The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master – something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself.
It is good to be attracted out of ourselves, to be forced to take a near view of the sufferings, the privations, the efforts, the difficulties of others.
I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand – they only. Know this at last.
Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being’s eye has failed to greet mine.
Make my happiness – I will make yours.
Tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.
I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms: you wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?
I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon.
He is not to them what he is to me.
I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?
I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.
The word book acted as a transient stimulus.
While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed!