The Woman in White Quotes

“The servants were so surprised at seeing me that they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all sorts of annoying mistakes. Even the butler, who was old enough to have known better, brought me a bottle of port that was chilled.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Let us say your wife dies——”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“I must really rest a little before I can get on any farther. When I have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when Louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-de-Cologne, I may be able to proceed.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can’t sit over their wine, they can’t play at whist, and they can’t pay a lady a compliment.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my mother's cottage.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“If I only had the privileges of a man, I would order out Sir Percival's best horse instantly, and tear away on a night-gallop, eastward, to meet the rising sun—a long, hard, heavy, ceaseless gallop of hours and hours, like the famous highwayman's ride to York. Being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats for life, I must respect the house-keeper's opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“The ruling idea of his life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his gratitude to the country which had afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence by doing his utmost to turn himself into an Englishman.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Don't doubt my courage, Walter, it's my weakness that cries, not me.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My arm lost all sensation of the hand that grasped it. I never moved and never spoke. The sharp autumn breeze that scattered the dead leaves at our feet, came as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes were dead leaves, too, whirled away by the wind like the rest. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me. Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they loved her as I did.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Starting from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Some people call that picturesque' said Sir Percival, pointing over the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. 'I call it a blot on a gentleman's property. In my great-grandfather's time, the lake flowed to this place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it, and plant it all over. My bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn't it?'
'My good Percival!' remonstrated the Count. 'What is your solid English sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body; and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer's footsteps. It is, upon the whole, the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“... our endurance must end, and our resistance begin, to-day.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman In White

“Marian and I avoided all further reference to that other subject, which by her consent and mine, was not to be mentioned between us yet. It was not the less present in our minds--it was rather kept alive in them by the restraint which we had imposed on ourselves”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Is the prison that Mr. Scoundrel lives in at the end of his career a more uncomfortable place than the workhouse that Mr. Honesty lives in at the end of his career?”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“I turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her. Miss Halcombe was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking at me attentively.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“We meet as mortal enemies hereafter - let us, like gallant gentlemen, exchange polite attentions in the meantime.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“How can you expect four women to dine together alone every day, and not quarrel?”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“He was in that state of highly-respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to English servants.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride;”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship—they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return? Let me go, Laura—I'm mad when I think of it!”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship—they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return?”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“They have tried to make me forget everything, Walter; but I remember Marian, and I remember you'--in that moment, I, who had long since given her my love, gave her my life, and thanked God that it was mine to bestow on her.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Erkekler bize söyledikleri acı sözleri ne kadar iyi hatırladığımızı ve canımızı nasıl yaktıklarını pek bilmezler.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“However, don't despair, Mr. Hartright. This is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a woman for your ally. Under such conditions success is certain, sooner or later.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“İnsanın yapabileceği itirafların en acıklısı, kendi sersemliğinin itirafından başkası değildir.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Miss Fairlie laughed with a ready good-humour, which broke out as brightly as if it had been part of the sunshine above us, over her lovely face. "I”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“There is nothing serious in mortality!”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Observe, dear lady, what a light is dying on the trees! Does it penetrate your heart, as it penetrates mine?”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“The girl ginned again, more cheerfully than ever. 'Bless you, miss! Baxter's the keeper; and when he finds strange dogs hunting about, he takes and shoots 'em. It's keeper's dooty, miss. I think that dog will die. Here's where he's been shot, ain't it? That's Baxter's doings, that is. Baxter's doings, miss, and Baxter's dooty.'
It was almost wicked enough to wish that Baxter had shot the housemaid instead of the dog.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all learn, as an Art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied. How much share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our friends? What space do they ever occupy in the thousand little narratives of personal experience which pass every day by word of mouth from one of us to the other? All that our minds can compass, all that our hearts can learn, can be accomplished with equal certainty, equal profit, and equal satisfaction to ourselves, in the poorest as in the richest prospect that the face of the earth can show.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White