Quotations
"Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort." -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'I — I meant well. You must believe that, I meant well.'
Such sad words, Poirot thought, some of the saddest words in the world." -Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party

"…exclaimed Murray rapturously, not meaning a syllable of it, but devoutly believing he did." -L.M. Montgomery, "At Five O'Clock in the Morning"

"It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling they felt, but that was what music was for." -Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

Quotation
"'I often think,' said she, 'that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Quotation
"To look almost pretty, is as acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive." -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotation
"But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach." -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Quotations
"'Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"'Be merciful to the failures, Emily. Satirise wickedness if you must — but pity weakness.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"'It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Jane of Lantern Hill

"'I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.  Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

"'He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business to live at all.'" -Joseph Conrad, "The Secret Sharer"

"'People aren't either wicked or noble,' the hook-handed man said. 'They're like chef salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.'" -Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

"'I'm afraid that's the wicked way of the world,' Dewey said, with a shake of his head. 'Everything's covered in smoke and mirrors…'" -Lemony Snicket, The Penultimate Peril

"He would argue with her about killing themselves; and explain how wicked people were; how he could see them making up lies as they passed in the street. He knew all their thoughts, he said; he knew everything. He knew the meaning of the world, he said." -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Quotations
"'I'm so glad you're here, Anne,' said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her candy. 'If you weren't I should be blue…very blue…almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One wants real things then. But you don't know this…seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlead

"And after breakfast there was an hour when Jane discovered that the hardest work in the world is waiting." -L.M. Montgomery, Jane of Lantern Hill

"…for action is always easier than quiet waiting." -Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

"'…when people are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half minute seems like five.'" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'I waited. I listened. Nothing came, nothing, I cried then with a sudden conviction of complete desertion, Now there is nothing. No fin breaks the waste of this immeasurable sea. Life has destroyed me. No echo comes when I speak, no varied words. This is more truly death than the death of friends, than the death of youth. I am the swathed figure in the hairdresser's shop taking up only so much space.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Waves

"Away down into the shadowy depth of the Real I once lived.
I thought that to seem was to be.
But the waters of Marah were beautiful, yet they were bitter.
I waited, and hoped, and prayed;
Counting the heart-throbs and the tears that answered them.
Through my earnest pleadings for the True, I learned that the mildest mercy of life was a smiling sneer;
And that the business of the world was to lash with vengeance all who dared to be what their God had made them.
Smother back tears to the red blood of the heart!
Crush out things called souls!
No room for them here!…" -Adah Isaacs Menken, "Myself"

"…She had to decide.

Do you wait for god to tell you what to do.

Or do you panic." -Kazim Ali, "Carlisle"

Quotation
"'I have never known what it was to separate esteem and love.'" -Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Quotations
"Besides, doesn't everybody know that it doesn't make a mite of difference how a love-letter is spelled?" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"…but her Letters were always unsatisfactory, and though she did not openly avow her feelings, yet every line proved her to be Unhappy." -Jane Austen, "Catharine, or the Bower"

"'Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

"Every body at all addicted to letter writing, without having much to say, which will include a large proportion of the female world at least…" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'Every body allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

"…as if letters couldn't lie.  But Philip knew better than that, sprawling his thanks across a page to Aunt Alice who had given him a teddy bear he was too old for.  Letter could lie all right, but they made the lie permanent.  They lay as evidence against you: they made you meaner than the spoken word." -Graham Greene, "The Basement Room"

"Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions…" -David Nicholls, One Day

"John Donne said more than kisses, letters mingle souls and so they do…" -Zadie Smith, White Teeth

Quotation
"'You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself: you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy.  Society is becoming irksome; and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath, the very idea of which without her is abhorrent.  You would not, for instance, now go to a ball for the world.  You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve; on whose regard you can place dependence; or whose counsel, in any difficult, you could rely on.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotation
"'…but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Quotation
"Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love." -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotations
"'Well, evil to some is always good to others.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

"'There is such a thing as evil…'" -Agatha Christie, Murder With Mirrors

"'…he looked at me as if I had been the embodied evil of life.'" -Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

"'…reflecting how much certain forms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed by resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigor to the body.'" -Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

"'And yet — she's a good soul. So good — she bores me. No evil in her. Somehow — one needs — a spice — of evil — in every personality. It's the — pinch of — salt — that brings out — the flavour.'
Another silence. Then he added gravely,
'Trouble is — the Cook — makes the pinch — too large — in most cases. Inexperienced Cook — wiser after — a few eternities.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"…'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! –
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —
On this home by horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —
Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore —
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'…" -Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"

"…It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil…" -Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

Quotations
"'Oh,' she though, 'how horrible it is that people have to grow up — and marry — and change!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"Kindred spirits alone do not change with the changing years." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'Changes come all the time. Just as soon as things get really nice they change,' she said with a sigh." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

"'…you'll change, whether you think you will or not.  Nothing ever stays the same.'" -Sylvia Plath, "Initiation"

"'Young people think they never can change, but they do in the most wonderful manner, and very few die of broken hearts.'" -Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

"'How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!'" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"…she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity; — and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquility to her heart." -Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

"Change leaves everything at the same level. Nothing stays bright but mornings." -Elizabeth Bowen, "Unwelcome Idea"

"'I remembered the old doctor – "It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot." I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.'" -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"Then he asked if I didn't like things changing.  And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine apart from becoming a girl or dying." -Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." -Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"'People change, they eat meals year after year and change with every meal.'" -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"'The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.'" -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Random Musing
In case you were curious, I personally do not like change very much. I have very little use for it, and generally find it a huge (rather frightening) nuisance.

Quotations
"The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"'What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?'" -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"…for no matter how lost and soiled and worn-out wandering sons may be, mothers can forgive and forget every thing as they fold them into their fostering arms. Happy the son whose faith in his mother remains unchanged, and who, through all his wanderings, has kept some filial token to repay her brave and tender love." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Men

"…she rejoiced as only mothers can in the good fortunes of their children." -Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

"'Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.'" -Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

"'A mother would have been always present.  A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

"…Mother, I
love you — for

whatever that
means,
meant — more

than I know, body
gave me my
own, generous,

inexorable place
of you…" -Robert Creeley, "For My Mother: Genevieve Jules Creeley April 8, 1887-                                                                                                           1972"

"…When you are in your grave all that you will be able to say is mommy.…" -Dorothea Lasky, "The Poetry that is Going to Matter After You are Dead"

Quotation
"…it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotation
"'There is so little real friendship in the world!'" -Jane Austen, Persuasion

Quotation
"…Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy, than felt herself to be so…" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Quotations
"Elizabeth's spirit's soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?'
'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"'I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"My mother then said she wished she knew why she had married him, and would like still more to know why he had married her.
My father said, 'You were so lovely — you've no idea.'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "Songs My Father Sang Me"

"'I have given my heart to another,' he repeated over and over again to himself." -Edward Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

"They fell in love for no reason at all, in the park, on a bench…" -Graham Greene, "When Greek Meets Greek"

"'Forgive me. Don't love me any more. Yes. Love me. Love me.'" -Katherine Mansfield, "Je ne parle pas français"

"For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? — some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people…" -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"'You've destroyed my loneliness.'" -Virginia Woolf, Night and Day

Vesper: I can't resist waking you. Every time I do you look at me as if you hadn't seen me in years. Makes me feel reborn.
-Casino Royale

Ashley: She's the only dream I ever had that didn't die in the face of reality.
-Gone With the Wind

Mr. Darcy: If, however, your feelings have changed. I would have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul, and I love— I love— I love you.
-Pride & Prejudice

Harry: I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes, and I love that you are the last person I wanna talk to before I go to sleep at night.
-When Harry Met Sally…

Harry: I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of you life to start as soon as possible.
-When Harry Met Sally…

Quotation
"'There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotations
"'…marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties.'" -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"'…for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people.'" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.'" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate." -Kate Chopin, The Awakening

"'"For better, for worse."' That sounds wonderful…but is there really such a thing as love in the world? We all believe it until we are twenty. Why, I used to believe it. Before I married Ramsay I used to lie awake at nights to think about him. Well, I did it after we were married, too, but not for the same reason. It was to wonder what woman he was with. I wonder how his new marriage is turning out. Sometimes I think I was a fool to divorce him. A home and position means a good deal.'" -L.M. Montgomery, The Blythes are Quoted

"And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"…there's nothing in the world so bad for some women as marriage…" -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"But such things happen to every one. Every one has friends who were killed in the War. Every one gives up something when they marry." -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

"For at any rate, she said to herself...she need not marry, thank Heaven: she need not undergo that degradation." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

"A married state affords but little ease
The best of husbands are so hard to please.
This in wives' careful faces you may spell
Though they dissemble their misfortunes well.
A virgin state is crowned with much content;
It's always happy as it's innocent.
No blustering husbands to create your fears;
No pangs of child birth to extort your tears;
No children's cries for to offend your ears;
Few worldly crosses to distract your prayers:
Thus are you freed from all the cares that do
Attend on matrimony and a husband too.
Therefore Madam, be advised by me
Turn, turn apostate to love's levity,
Suppress wild nature if she dare rebel.
There' s no such thing as leading apes in hell." -Katherine Philips, "A Married State"

Maggie: Don't you believe in marriage?
Jane: Yes, for women.
-The Women (1939)