Charlotte Brontë

“לפעמים בעודי מלמדת או תופרת הייתי מעדיפה לקרוא או לכתוב; אך אני מנסה להתכחש לעצמי.”

“הייתי מאושרת, מאושרת בדרכי לפחות. דבר לא הפחיד אותי חוץ מן האפשרות שיפריעו לי, וזו אכן התממשה מהר מדי: דלת החדר הקטן נפתחה.”

“כל תמונה סיפרה סיפור, שהיה לעתים מופלא מכדי שאבין אותו בתפיסתי המוגבלת וברגשותי הבוסריים, אך בכל זאת עורר בי עניין עמוק.”

“לא אהבתי טיולים ארוכים, במיוחד אחר הצהריים, כשכבר קריר. שנאתי לחזור הביתה בשעת דמדומים צוננת, כשאצבעות הידיים והרגליים מעקצצות מקור.”

“תמיד ערכתי השוואות בלבי, אבל לא עלה על דעתי שאבטא אותן אי פעם בקול רם.”

“אני קשורה אליך בחיבור עז. אני חושבת שאתה טוב, מחונן, מקסים: תשוקה יוקדת וכבדת משקל נוצרת בתוך לבי; היא נוטה אליך, מושכת אותך אל מרכזי ומעיין חיי.”

“נישואיהם היו כל כך לא מוצלחים, עד שבסופו של דבר הסתיימו בפירוד – פירוד מתוך הסכמה הדדית, ללא שום הליך משפטי.”

“ילד אחד בבית שדייריו כולם בוגרים, בדרך כלל מכרכרים סביבו, ואכן זכיתי לתשומת לב רבה.”

“במשך זמן קצר, קצר מאוד, אולי תהיה כמו שאתה עכשיו. ואז תהיה בהדרגה צונן יותר וחסר סבלנות ולבסוף נוקשה.”

“לא היה בהם לא קסמו של גיוון, ולא הריגוש שבהתרחשות, אבל שלווה הייתה חביבה עליי.”

“הערב היה גשום. הגשם הצליף בשמשות, והרוח נשמעה כעוסה וחסרת מנוח.”

“I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded; his heart will be undaunted; his hope will be sure; his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this: “My Master,” he says, “has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly, ‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond, ‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!”

“This little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once.”

“He that is low need fear no fall.”

“Most true is it that 'beauty is in the eye of the gazer.' My master’s colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth, — all energy, decision, will, — were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me, — that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”

“A man is master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it. -William Crimsworth”

“. . . they would neither hate nor envy us if they did not deem us so much happier than themselves.”

“The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but—mechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.”

“Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.”

“If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.”