Quotes from Winston Graham

we can't alter the world, we can only adapt ourselves to it.

He moved towards her, and knew the moment he touched her that something had won his battle for him. He took her face in his hands, held it like a cup to be drunk from, and then kissed her. With a serious unsmiling mouth he touched her eyelids, her cheeks, her hair, and sighed, as if for the moment her acceptance were all and there was no further desire in him.

Instead this 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 these ornaments and furnishings would be her companions through the years to come. And she realised 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.

Qualified help was weak and timid. Either you come out dead against the attachment or else help without reservation, without giving the impression of reluctance and disapproval.

How old are you?" "Thirteen…sur." It was the first time she had sirred him. He might have known that these undersized, half-starved waifs were always older than they looked.

If we lived for ever, who would look forward eagerly to tomorrow? If there were no darkness, should we so appreciate the sun? Warmth after cold, food after hunger, drink after thirst, sexual love after the absence of sexual love, the fatherly greeting after being away, the comfort and dryness of home after a ride in the rain, the warmth and peace and security of one's fireside after being among enemies. Unless there were contrast there might be satiety. He

George stared across the street. 'There is only one trouble with the Poldarks,' he said after a moment. 'They cannot take a beating.' 'And only one trouble with the Warleggans,' said Ross. 'They never know when they are not wanted.' George's color deepened. 'But they can appreciate and remember an insult.' 'Well, I trust you will remember this one.' Ross turned his back and went down the steps into the tavern.

There are no permanent things, only fleeting moments of warmth and companionship, precious stationary seconds in a flicker of troubled days. The

in the best society hardly anyone can be certain who their father is.

Demelza said: 'It seems to me no man is wise enough if the woman is not wise enough.

Of course there has to be an end,' she said. 'Of course. For that is what everyone has faced since the world began. And that is – what do you call it? – intolerable. It's intolerable! So you must not think of it. You must not face it. Because it is a – certainty it has to be forgotten. One cannot – must not – fear a certainty.

Children in their youth blossomed and bloomed; then chance, inclination, heredity all played their part

Dwight again said: ' Caroline...' but this time as if all the cracks in his heart were widening.

He said in exasperation, "Goddamn it, you should know I'm not used to dealing with women! You search the earth to find some special secret feminine grievance to gnaw over for months on end and then produce it coolly on the mat to explain all the irrational hedging and dodging of an entire winter—

Perhaps," said Demelza, trembling all over. "Perhaps I'd ought to have asked for an introduction seeing it's so long since we met." "I don't doubt you have been well consoled in my absence," said Ross. "You were not concerned to come and see whether I was or no." "It seems that I was unwelcome when I did.

I am not a good pleader', he said; 'being too infernal conscious of my own dignity. The dignified fool, Demelza, gets nowhere beside the suave flattering rogue.

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.

Marnie, I won't say, Make him happy, but I will say, Be happy yourself. I think you're capable of much more than you think

I am enceinte, gravid, pregnant, in pup, call it what you will. No doubt there are as many names for the production of a child as for the act which initiates it.

She added, "I've only followed the devices and desires of my own heart." Verity patted her hand. "That's what we love you for.

Seeking perfection, Ross . . . in life it's dangerous, for it makes the less than perfect seem less than enough. Time is not indefinite.

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

So he found that what he had half despised was not despicable, that what had been for him the satisfaction of an appetite, a pleasant but commonplace adventure in disappointment, owned wayward and elusive depths he had not known before, and carried the knowledge of beauty in its heart.

Refreshment is the remedy for all manner of embarrassments.