Quotes from Winston Graham

Why must you plague me with these questions in the middle of the night?

to hold and possess the whole fullness of life in one moment, there and then, past and present and to come.

Like all human beings she could not refrain from idly comparing what she had with what she might have had.

The trouble with music was that in some way it was too nostalgic...every tune seemed to exist with its notes firmly rooted in an event or an emotion or a period of time.

Wishing is like water caught in a dam. You let a little trickle of it escape and you don't think it's much, but in no time the trickle has worn a channel and the edges fall in and the water's doubled and then you get a flood carrying everything away.

are not all women treated by all men like something inferior, like chattels you take up and put down at will?

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.

He was a goat tethered to the peg of his own character and could only consume the riches of the earth that came within his range. And she had bound herself to stay in his circle for the rest of her life…

No, you never do start arguments, do you, with your cold looks an' your bitter tongue! You just freeze everyone up an'—an' despise everything that isn't up to your standard. It's—it's unfair and horrible! Perhaps that's what you want me always to feel. Perhaps you're sorry you ever bothered to marry me!

Mi ci vorrebbe un po' più di gentilezza ora che respiro ancora, ecco cosa.»

Lui resterà con me. Non perché deve, ma perché vuole.

In alto nel cielo c'era uno sbuffo di nuvole rosa e zafferano.

Avrebbe voluto pregare per qualcosa che di sicuro il Dio della vedova Chegwidden avrebbe disapprovato.

His partner, Peter Hoskin, was waiting, and together they climbed down the series of inclining ladders to the forty fathom level, and stooped through narrow tunnels and echoing caves until they reached the level they were driving south-west in the direction of the old Wheal Maiden workings.

Because what is civilized life but an imposition of unreal standards upon flawed and defective human beings by other human beings no less flawed and defective?

Ross pensò: se solo potessimo fermare la vita per un po', la fermerei qui. Non al mio ritorno a casa, non al momento di lasciare Trenwith, ma qui, qui, mentre ci avviciniamo alla sommità della collina, oltre Sawle, il crepuscolo che accarezza i confini della terra e Demelza che cammina canticchiando al mio fianco.

The acme of futility was to regret a pleasure that was past, and he had no intention of doing so. The thing was done.

Il vestito era quello che aveva trovato in fondo al secondo baule e che fin dall'inizio l'aveva attirata come la mela aveva attirato Eva.

One did not so much feel sorrow at his absence as a sense of the unfitness of his not being there.

Poverty can be endured if it is endured with pride.

With age one never looked far ahead. The marathon horizons of youth narrowed and shortened into hurdles of age.

Demelza cominciò a cantare giocosa e con voce profonda: «C'era una vecchia coppia, senza un soldo in tasca, Tweedle, tweedle, go twee.»

Fetch it down an' I'll mix ye a Sampson." It had once been Prudie's favorite drink: brandy and cider and sugar. She stared at Jud as if he were the Devil tempting her to sell her soul.

It was the unexpected tribute that broke Ross up. He had hardened himself to all the rest. Not being a religious man, he had no resources to meet the loss of the child except his own resentful will. Inwardly he railed against heaven and circumstance, but the very cruelty of the blow touched his character at its toughest and most obstinate.