Quotes from Emily

Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.

PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry.

All things do go a-courting, In earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single But thee in His world so fair.

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell.

To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

The Brain—is wider than the Sky— For—put them side by side— The one the other will contain With ease—and You—beside.... The Brain is just the weight of God— For—Heft them—Pound for Pound— And they will differ—if they do— As Syllable from Sound.

We'd never know how high we are, till we are called to rise; and then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the sky.

Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church, I keep it staying at Home— With a bobolink for a Chorister, And an Orchard, for a Dome.

Luck is not chance, it's toil fortune's expensive smile is earned.

We trust in plumed procession For such the angels go - Rank after Rank, with even feet - And uniforms of Snow.

Besides the autumn poets sing, A few prosaic days A little this side of the snow And that side of the haze... Grand me, O Lord, a sunny mind, Thy windy will to bear!

I dwell in Possibility A fairer house than Prose More numerous of Windows Superior — for Doors.

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.

Publication — is the auction of the Mind of Man.

They might not need me but they might. I'll let my head be just in sight a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

Nature is a Haunted House—but Art—a House that tries to be haunted.

Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit — Life!

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.

A Letter is a Joy of Earth - It is denied the Gods

A word is dead when it's been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it.