Quotes from Winston Graham

To hear the young talk today you would think no one had had any excitement in the past, any heartaches, any problems, any bitter frustrations or heady fulfilment. The young of today were more than a shade tedious; pompous, self-centred, so sure that their concerns were the first important ones that had ever happened. They had no perspective. no sense of proportion. Perhaps it was necessary to be old to acquire a true sense of proportion. It was small consolation but it was something.

I thought, the way to love is through suffering. Who had said that? Did it mean anything or was it just the usual talk?

At times I have discovered a new lowness of spirit, a new need to revolt, to kick against the constraints that a civilized life tries to impose." He stopped and regarded her. "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?

I didn't want either him or his cousin, I only wanted to be able to rob them in peace.

And what of this young woman beside him, whom he had loved devotedly for four years and still did love? She had given him more than Elizabeth ever could: months of unflawed relationship, unquestioning trust (which he was now betraying in thought) . Oh nonsense! What man did not at some time or another glance elsewhere? And who could complain if it remained at a glance? (Chance was a fine thing).

He tried to remember her as a thin little urchin trailing across the fields with Garrick behind her. But that was no use at all. The urchin was gone forever. It was not beauty she had grown overnight but the appeal of youth, which was beauty in its own right.

Here, beast, you shall be the chairman, and mind you call us to order. He leaned forward and dropped the cat on the empty seat.

Lazy in everything," said Ross, "but the search for excuses. Like two old pigs in their sty and as slow to move from their own patch of filth." Prudie

Their lives had been the tragedy of one woman who couldn't make up her mind.

can't let other people's misery spoil our lives. We can't, for else there'd be no happiness for anyone ever again. We can't be all tied up one with another like that, or why did God make us separate? While we've got our happiness we must enjoy it, for who knows how long it will last?

Either you trust a man and give him authority to carry out his treatment or you do not. When it goes well you are happy that you did so. When it goes ill you think, if only . . .

Life is like--like one of those hobby-horses you ride at a fair--round and round you go enjoying every moment and then the--then the music stops...

The ribbon of milky mist still lay in the gully. It stretched down to the sea, and there were patches across the sand hills like steam from a kettle.

Give me some surety if you want to continue. It is not late yet." Ross offered his gold watch, which had belonged to his father and which he seldom wore.

I am not agitated. I am only agitated when someone advises me to reduce my diet.

I could say how well he dances, but that isn't true, for he dances like that big friendly bear I saw last Christmas.

Monthly, out of common courtesy, he went to inquire after the invalid Charles, who refused either to die or get better.

Demelza was beginning to feel like a lion tamer who has been putting his pets through their paces and finds them getting out of hand.

No bal maidens or spallers

I'm -- earthy. I don't look at a figure on a cross, I look at the things round me. Those are what I love; my husband, my child, my dog, my garden, my spinet, my bedroom, my home. Earthy. You see. But I have love overflowing for all those. Those are more important to me than a Man sitting on a throne in Heaven. I hope if I explain it to Him when I see Him, He'll come round to see it my way . . .

Well then, try to keep an open mind be ready to learn about other things. Such as this, I suppose Such as trying not to have set ideas - other people's ideas - about love

people, even well-bred people like those, had a surprising tendency to take you at your own valuation.

He pushed her nails away from his eyes, accepting her bites as if they were no part of him. He pulled the cloth away from her throat, gripped it. Her screaming stopped. Her eyes started tears, died, grew big. She knew there was death, but life called her, sweet life, all the sweetness of youth, not yet gone. Dwight, the baronet, years of triumph, crying, dying.

It was since he returned home that the evil eye of discontent had been on him, making empty air of his attempts to find a philosophy of his own, turning to ashes whatever he grasped.