Winston Graham

“Everything at the moment, my dear, no doubt seems disgusting. I know the mood too well. But being in that mood, Ross, is like being out in the frost. If we do not keep on the move we shall perish.”

“Ill usage makes the sweetest of us vicious.”

“But fear and fascination are yokefellows, oxen out of step but pulling in the same direction...”

“Of course he'll bring no money. Nor never will. He's not the type to--accumulate. But it's a good name to have. And he's becoming a personality in the county. One never knows quite why this happens, eh? Not so much what a man does. More a matter of character.”

“If every one of you was to clean before his own front door, all would be clean of cow flops.”

“That reminds me of when you used to call and see us before Christmas, the year before last. Somehow–somehow life was all dark and secret and beautiful then.”

“...Here, beast, you shall be the chairman, and mind you call us to order." He leaned forward and dropped the cat on the empty seat.”

“Monthly, out of common courtesy, he went to inquire after the invalid Charles, who refused either to die or get better.”

“I could say how well he dances, but that isn't true, for he dances like that big friendly bear I saw last Christmas.”

“I suspect that for a good deal of the time you live in a sort of glass case, not knowing real enthusiasm or genuine emotion; or feeling them perhaps at second hand, feeling them sometimes because you think you ought to, not because you really do.”

“Everyone," Ross said, "seems a little less concerned than I do. Am I more tender-hearted for others or only tender because of my own conscience?""We are not–untender," she said. "Not so. But maybe we are more–resigned. When a man is condemned to death we accept it, though it's sad to do so. We know we cannot change it. You hoped to change it–so it's more of a–a disappointment. You feel you have failed. We don't feel that because we never hoped to succeed.”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in men’s minds, perhaps from a lack of a willingness to feel themselves utterly alone. But now and then I feel that there is something beyond the material world, somethings we all feel intimations of but cannot explain. Underneath the religious vision there is the harsh fundamental reality of all our lives, because we know we must live and die as the animals we are. But sometimes I suspect that under that harsh reality there is a further vision, still deeper based, that comes nearer to true reality than the reality we know.”

“It isn't where you're born in this world, it's what you do.”

“And what of this young woman beside him, whom he had loved devotedly for four years and still did love? She had given him more than Elizabeth ever could: months of unflawed relationship, unquestioning trust (which he was now betraying in thought) . Oh nonsense! What man did not at some time or another glance elsewhere? And who could complain if it remained at a glance? (Chance was a fine thing).”

“Demelza was beginning to feel like a lion tamer who has been putting his pets through their paces and finds them getting out of hand.”