Quotes from Winston Graham

The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return.

Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection.

When you bring an idealised relationship down to the level of an ordinary one it isn't necessarily the ordinary one that suffers'.

There were no tears in her. The wound went too deep, or she was not so constituted to give way to it. Hers would be the perpetual ache of loss and loneliness, slowly dulled with time until it became a part of her character, a faint sourness tinged with withered pride.

It isn't very pretty to have been made a fool of by one's own feelings,' he said. 'To take childish promises and build a--a castle out of them...

Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones.

Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.

The case is closed, Mr. Poldark. You will kindly step down." "Otherwise," said Dr. Halse, "we will have you committed for contempt of court." Ross bowed slightly. "I can only assure you, sir, that such a committal would be a reading of my inmost thoughts.

Do you believe we are masters of ourselves, or merely dance like puppets on strings having the illusion of independence?

God, thought Ross, it does work, and unfairly; but I want her, not any other, not the most beautiful eighteen-year-old damsel born out of a sea-shell, not the most seductive houri of any sultan's harem; I want her with her familiar gestures and her shining smile and her scarred knees, and I know she wants me in just the same way, and if there's any happiness more complete than this I don't know it and am not sure I even want it.

A nice frame doesn't make a nice picture.

If you wish to discover a man's true feelings, it is always best to provoke him.

They are all sentimentalists at heart, the Poldarks, Verity thought, and she realized suddenly for the first time that it was a dangerous trait, far more dangerous than any cynicism.

I said to myself, 'He has done this and he has paid for it. Isn't that enough? Is a man to be condemned forever? Why do I go to church and repeat the Lord's Prayer if I don't hold to it, if there is no forgiveness? Is our own behavior higher than the founder of Christianity, that we should set a higher standard for others?

Tenderness is not like money: the more you give to one, the more you have for others.

He was a man of moods, yet he was her constant, something unchanging, infinitely reliable, the pivot of her life. There could never be anyone else. Without him she would not be more than half alive.

Tedn't law. Tedn't right. Tedn't just. Tedn't sense. Tedn't friendly.

His was not an easy face to read, and no one could have told that in the past half hour he had suffered the worst knock of his life. Except that he no longer whistled into the wind or talked to his irritable mare, there was nothing to show.

No man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't desire....But every man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't get.

The book from which you take your teaching, Dr. Halse, says that man shall not live by bread alone. These days you're asking men to live without even bread.

Men's tongues in some things outrun women's.

I believe yours is the only wisdom, Demelza.

That's all that matters. The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return. People who haven't got it—or had it—don't believe that, but it's the truth.

Instead, the room, which had seen her grow to maturity, would see her dry up and fade. The gilt mirror in the corner would bear its dispassionate testimony. All the ornaments and furnishings would be her companions through the years to come. And she realized that she would come to hate them, if she didn't already hate them, as one hates the witnesses of one's humiliation and futility.