Quotes from Wilkie Collins

The little children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they are not borrowed children.

They have tried to make me forget everything, Walter; but I remember Marian, and I remember you'--in that moment, I, who had long since given her my love, gave her my life, and thanked God that it was mine to bestow on her.

Marian and I avoided all further reference to that other subject, which by her consent and mine, was not to be mentioned between us yet. It was not the less present in our minds--it was rather kept alive in them by the restraint which we had imposed on ourselves

?nsan?n yapabilece?i itiraflar?n en ac?kl?s?, kendi sersemli?inin itiraf?ndan ba?kas? de?ildir.

Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted - never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache.

Perhaps I have dwelt too long already on the little story of our parting from home? I can only say, in excuse, that my heart is full of it; and what is not in my heart my pen won't write.

How can you expect four women to dine together alone every day, and not quarrel?

How much happier we should be,' she thought to herself sadly, 'if we never grew up!

But compare the hardest day's work you ever did with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and thank your stars that your head has got something it must think of, and your hands something that they must do.

I give you better than proof, gentlemen; I give you my positive opinion.

I hope I take up the cause of all oppressed people rather warmly.

However, don't despair, Mr. Hartright. This is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a woman for your ally. Under such conditions success is certain, sooner or later.

The upshot of it was, that Rosanna Spearman had been a thief, and not being of the sort that get up Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her, and the prison and the reformatory followed the lead of the law.

There is nothing serious in mortality!

Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!

Starting from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.

Now, Betteredge, exert those sharp wits of yours, and observe the conclusion to which the Colonel's instructions point! I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly English sort; and they consequently muddled it all

Observe, dear lady, what a light is dying on the trees! Does it penetrate your heart, as it penetrates mine?

No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace—they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship—they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return?

He was, out of all sight (as I remember him), the nicest boy that ever spun a top or broke a window.

Well may your heart believe the truths Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.

I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me?

You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably.

Evil report, with time and chance to help it, travels patiently, and travels far.