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.
I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.
That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquility was no more.
Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.
Well had Solomon said,’Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Am I hideous, Jane? Very, sir: you always were, you know.
Rochester: I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me.
I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me.
I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind.
His mind was indeed my library, and whenever it was opened to me, I entered bliss.
All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.
Shake me off, then, sir – push me away; for I’ll not leave you of my own accord.
For I too liked reading, thought of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.
I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.
Rochester: My bride is here, because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?
Unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.
He was the first to recognise me, and to love what he saw.
Presentiments are strange things: and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity had not yet found the key.
The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway; and asserting a right to predominate: to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes, – and to speak.
Her coming was my hope each day, Her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay Was ice in every vein.