Quotes from Sarah Waters

No-one speaks. No-one moves (…). We glide, softly, in silence, into our dark and separate hells

Every poor lady that came to me, that touched my hand, that drew a small part of my spirit from me to her—they were only shadows. Aurora, they were shadows of you! I was only seeking you out, as you were seeking me. You were seeking me, your own affinity. And if you let them keep me from you now, I think we shall die!

My locket hangs in my closet beside the glass, the only shining thing among so many shadows.

Don't you think that queer? That a common coarse-featured woman might drink morphia and be sent to gaol for it, while I am saved and sent to visit her—and all because I am a lady?

Marriages are like pianos. They go in and out of tune.

They had been patient, all this time. They'd lived in darkness. They'd lived without salt, without scent. They'd fed themselves little scraps of pleasure, like pairings of cheese. Now she became aware if the minutes as they passed: she felt them, suddenly, for what they were, as fragments of her life, her youth, that were rushing away like so many drops of water, never to return.

my spirit does not love yours—it is entwined with it. Our flesh does not love: our flesh is the same, and longs to leap to itself. It must do that, or wither!

Her eyes are like fingers. They can touch. They can press and pinch.

You have come to Millbank, to look on women more wretched than yourself, in the hope that it will make you well again.

They settled back into an embrace - as if it was nothing, as if it was easy; as if they weren't two boys, in a prison, in a city being blown and shot to bits; as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

The fitful sleeping makes the hours pass slowly; it seems to me the night has many nights in it?has years of nights!?through which, as if through drifts of smoke, I am compelled to stumble.

There was a little padded seat beside the rattling panes and mouldy sand-bags, it was the coldest place in the room; but she kept there for an hour and a half, with a shawl about her, shivering, squinting at her stitches, and sneaking sly little glances at the road to the house. I thought, if that wasn't love, then I was a Dutchman; and if it was love, then lovers were pigeons and geese, and I was glad I was not one of them.

I must be better, she thought—realising it then, in that moment, for the first time. I must be OK.

You expect things to change, or people to change; but it's silly, isn't it? Because people and things don't change. Not really. You just have to get used to them.

For she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.

Don't you like surprises?' No, Frances didn't like surprises. She hated the thought of people plotting and planning on her behalf. She loathed the burden of being delighted once the surprise was disclosed.

Get over it . What a funny phrase that is! As if one's grief is a fallen house, and one has to pick one's way over the rubble to the ground on the other side…

She let her head sink, until her brow met the varnished glass. How easy it was, she thought unhappily as she did it, for men and women. They could stand in a street and argue, flirt—they could kiss, make love, do anything at all—and the world indulged them. Whereas she and Julia—

It made me giddy. It made me blush, worse than before. It was like liquor. It made me drunk. I drew away. When her breath came now upon my mouth, it came very cold. My mouth was wet, from hers. I said, in a whisper, 'Do you feel it?

She raised her head when she heard my step, and her gaze met my own, over the matron's dipping shoulder, and her eyes grew bright. I knew then how hard it had been to keep, not just from Millbank but from her. I felt that little quickening. It was just as I imagine a woman must feel, when the baby within her gives its first kick. Does it matter if I feel that, that is so small, and silent, and secret?

It had three or four book-cases, all of them very full, and a rack of wands, with newspapers and magazines hung out upon them like dripping laundry.

Then I knew how good you were, to come to me, after all you had seen. The first hour they had me there, do you know what frightened me the most? Oh, it was a torment to me!- far worse than any punishment of theirs . It was the thought that you might stay from me; the thought that I might have driven you away, and with the very thing I meant to keep you near me!

She ran, and leaned to the wall, until her face was close to mine and her breath came on me. I said, 'I'll do it. I'll go with you. I love you, and I cannot give you up. Only tell me what I must do and I will do it!' Then I saw her eye, and it was black, and my own face swam in it, pale as a pearl. And then, it was like Pa and the looking-glass. My soul left me - I felt it fly from me and lodge in her.

She will be like everyone, putting on the things she sees the constructions she expects to find there.