Quotes from D.H. Lawrence

Well, we've been waiting for years...we wait longer. Hate's a growing thing like anything else. It's the inevitable outcome of forcing ideas on to life, of forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings we force according to certain ideas. We drive ourselves with a formula, like a machine.

And how they take one in, with their manners and their mock wistfulness and gentleness.

For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything.

But for herself, nothing but this dreary endurance—till the children grew up.

Why don't you praise me up to the skies? She laughed. I should have the trouble of dragging you down again, she said.

And looking ahead, the prospect of her life made her feel as if she were buried alive.

She never suffered alone any more: the children suffered with her.

She had scornful grey eyes, a skin like white honey, and a full mouth with a slightly lifted upper lip, that did not know whether it was raised in scorn of all men, or out of eagerness to be kissed.

everywhere for it. And, as she sought, the conviction came into her heart that her husband had taken it. What she had in her purse was all the money

Because, after all, like so many modern men, he was finished almost before he had begun. And that forced the woman to be active.

But you do believe in something?' `Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say shit! in front of a lady.' `Well, you've got them all,' said Berry.

Why don't men and women really like one another nowadays?' Connie asked Tommy Dukes, who was more or less her oracle.

She was gone, she was not, and she was born: a woman.

Since that time the boy used to look at the man every time he came through, with the same curious criticism, glancing away before he met the smith's eye. It made Dawes furious. They hated each other in silence.

There had come into his forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him, particularly when he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away, and she was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morel.

Moby Dick, the Great White Whale, tore off Ahab's leg at the knee, when Ahab was attacking him. Quite right, too. Should have torn off both his legs, and a lot more besides.

Because, after all, like so many modern men, he was finished almost before he had begun.

And then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly null, desert.

Her face was falling loose, but her eyes were calm, and there was something strong in her that made it seem she was not old; merely her wrinkles and loose cheeks were an anachronism.

How she hated words, always coming between her and life: they did the ravishing, if anything did: ready-made words and phrases, sucking all the life-sap out of living things.

Do you like me?' `Very much! And you see there's no question of kissing between us, is there?' `None at all!' said Connie. `But oughtn't there to be?' ` Why, in God's name? I like Clifford, but what would you say if I went and kissed him?' `But isn't there a difference?

Money one always wanted.

Just to keep the business mechanically going, you needed money. You had to have it. Money you have to have. You needn't really have anything else. So that's that! Since, of course, it's not your own fault you are alive. Once you are alive, money is a necessity, and the only absolute necessity. All the rest you can get along without, at a pinch. But not money. Emphatically, that's that!

Yes, I feel something is wrong between men and women. A woman has no glamour for a man any more.' `Has a man for a woman?' She pondered the other side of the question. `Not much,' she said truthfully.