Quotes from Winston Graham

Ross said quietly: 'Yes, I could sleep with you.' She smiled at him. He said: 'And for the same reasons will not.' 'Thank you, Captain.' He said: 'You've always been my firm friend – from so long ago. Almost before we knew each other well at all.' 'I believe I fancied you from the beginning.' 'I believe it was something more important than that, even then.

Caroline took a long draught of wine, half a glass as against Ross's sip. She leaned back against the red plush. 'For instance, Ross, I could lie happily with you tonight.' His eyes went quickly up to hers. 'Could you?' 'Yes. In fact I've always wanted to – as perhaps you know.

Perhaps one aspect of arrogance lies in not being willing to accept what life sometimes expects one to accept.

She knew that he had never seen her before. She knew the value of first impressions.

ahead in the soft and sighing darkness

Walking here with the sun-warmed air on his face he had come up against the fact that it was good just to be alive.

She looked at him candidly, without coquetry and without fear. "I live only for you, Ross." A breeze lifted the curtain at one of the open windows. The birds outside were quiet at last and it was dark. He kissed her again, that time on the mouth.

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? It has seemed to me that there is a rottenness to it that I have constantly wanted to kick against and to overset.' He stopped again, breathing slowly, trying to marshal the complexities of his own feelings.

And gentlefolk never laugh at simplicity; they only laugh at pretence.

A big fly came down also and settled on a leaf close to her face; he had two round brown knobs on his head and at that range looked enormous, a prehistoric animal that had roamed the jungles of a forgotten world. First he stood on four front legs and rubbed the two back ones with sinuous ease up and down his wings, then he stood on the four back and rubbed the two front ones like an obsequious shopkeeper.

Help, help, help, I am lost in the very deeps of the earth. Not eight feet underground but two hundred; blind already but not deaf, shuddering in the warm water, fingers burning last grip loosening; one nail, one rusty nail.

Demelza did give him encouragement, of a sort. She was always exchanging asides with him, making another

He went down and found the body floating. Francis had been dead about an hour. In one of his hands, clutched so that they could barely unfasten it, was a rusty nail.

You may speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it all depends how you speak it! Got to be tactful, persuasive, throw yourself on the mercy and indulgence of the law. Be humble and innocent, not stiff-backed and defiant.

Dinner began at five and went on until seven forty. It was a meal worthy of the age, the house, and the season. Pea soup to begin, followed by a roast swan with sweet sauce, giblets, mutton steaks, a partridge pie, and four snipe. The second course was a plum pudding with brandy sauce, tarts, mince pies, custards, and cakes, all washed down with port wine and claret and Madeira and home-brewed ale. Ross felt that there was only one thing missing: Charles.

appointment – or at least permitting him to. And she allowed him to paw her—

Si poteva sprecare l'intera giovinezza delineando differenze di nessun conto tra un obbligo morale e un altro.

Among the smaller gentry his London experience stood him in good stead;

Demelza con la sua femminilità appena sbocciata. Una ragazzina appassionata che si rotolava nella polvere con il suo brutto cane; una ragazza che conduceva dei buoi; una donna... il resto aveva davvero importanza?

Lei chinò il capo per ascoltarlo. Jim notò che in qualunque ombra sedessero, c'era sempre una luce che cercava la pelle pallida e liscia della fronte di lei, la curva delle sue guance. Luce, c'era sempre luce per i suoi occhi.

Another and less elevated lesson she had learned in married life was that if she wheedled long enough and discreetly enough, she quite often got her own way in the end.

Tedn't fair. Tedn't just. Tedn't British.

He was not discontented, but he was too restless, too preoccupied. Each day led so relentlessly to the next, linked by cause and effect, anticipation and result, preparation and achievement.

When can we have an election like the Americans – no rowdiness or fighting or fuss and all seats contested on the same