Wilkie Collins Quotes

Men ruin themselves headlong for unworthy women.

And earth was heaven a little the worse for wear. And heaven was earth, done up again to look like new.

Characters to the Story,

Are you free of each other, pretty Mrs. Valeria, by common consent of both parties?

I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones beneath.

The fool's crime is the crime that is found out and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out.

Ah! How much happiness there is in life if we will only have the patience to wait for it.

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

I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride;

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.

They seem to be in a conspiracy to persecute you," she said. "What does it mean?"
"Only the protest of the world, Miss Verinder - on a very small scale - against anything that is new.

We both wanted money. Immense necessity! Universal want! Is there a civilised human being who does not feel for us? How insensible must that man be! Or how rich!

We don't want genius in this country unless it is accompanied by respectability.

Some people call that picturesque' said Sir Percival, pointing over the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. 'I call it a blot on a gentleman's property. In my great-grandfather's time, the lake flowed to this place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it, and plant it all over. My bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn't it?'
'My good Percival!' remonstrated the Count. 'What is your solid English sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body; and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer's footsteps. It is, upon the whole, the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on.

At sixty, I worshiped her with the volcanic ardour of eighteen. All the gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly at her feet. My wife – poor angel! – my wife, who adores me, got nothing but the shillings and the pennies. Such is the Work, such Man, such Love. What are we (I ask) but puppets in a show-box? Oh, omnipotent Destiny, pull our strings gently! Dance us mercifully off our miserable little stage!

The best men are not consistent in good - why should the worst men be consistent in evil?

She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steel his heart against her.

She drew back from the spectacle of my humiliation and of her triumph. The sudden silence that had fallen upon me seemed to frighten her. "I spared you, at the time," she said. "I would have spared you now, if you had not forced me to speak." She moved away as if to leave the room-- and hesitated before she got to the door. "Why did you come here to humiliate yourself?" she asked. "Why did you come here to humiliate me?" She went on a few steps, and paused once more. "For God's sake, say something!" she exclaimed, passionately. "If you have any mercy left, don't let me degrade myself in this way! Say something--and drive me out of the room!

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?

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

I have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up? Without

After the lapse of a minute, I roused my manhood, and opened the door.

We had our breakfasts
whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast.

Yes! the books - the generous friends who met me without suspicion - the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of my life that I can look back on with something like pride ... Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the draught.

To-day we love, what to-morrow we hate.

The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my mother's cottage.

I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is - the enormous prosperity of Fools.

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

I agree with the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife, couldn't charge for her board, and would have to give me her services for nothing. That was the point of view I looked at it from. Economy - with a dash of love.

Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form - large and tender and quietly thoughtful - but beautiful above all things in the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their inmost depths, and shines through all their changes of expression with the light of a purer and a better world.

Leave me my delusion, dearest! I must have that to cherish, and to comfort me, if I have nothing else!

Silence is safe.

You don't have to speak at all
I know what you'd say ...
- Laura

If they show themselves disposed to accept their proper position I will assist them to start virtuously in life by a present of one hundred pounds each. This sum I authorize you to pay them, on their personal application, with the necessary acknowledgment of receipt; and on the express understanding that the transaction, so completed, is to be the beginning and the end of my connection with them. The

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

He started up, and wrung my hand in quite an ecstasy of gratitude. How I do hate people who can only express their feelings by hurting other people's hand.

This is a miserable world", says the Sergeant. "Human life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target
misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark".

She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly! Never

I should never, perhaps, have heard even the name of the woman who has lived in all my thoughts, who has possessed herself of all my energies, who has become the one guiding influence that now directs the purpose of my life.

Except in this ignorant and material century, men have always worn precious stuffs and beautiful colours as well as women.

If it's any comfort to you, collar me again. You don't in the least know how to do it; but I'll overlook your awkwardness in consideration of your feelings.

The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public - a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization - which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad.

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.

I am a bundle of nerves dressed up to look like a man!

I am a citizen of the world, and I have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue, that I am puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and which is the wrong.

Dont speak of tomorrow.Let the music speak to us tonight,in a happier language than ours.

As a general rule, political talk appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.

The servants were so surprised at seeing me that they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all sorts of annoying mistakes. Even the butler, who was old enough to have known better, brought me a bottle of port that was chilled.

Even baldness, when it is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case), is rather becoming than not in a man, for it heightens the head and adds to the intelligence of the face.

No woman can resist admiration and presents
especially presents, provided they happen to be just the thing she wants. He was sharp enough to know that
most men are. Naturally he wanted something in return
all men do

How inestimably important in its moral results - and therefore how praiseworthy in itself - is the act of eating and drinking! The social virtues center in the stomach. A man who is not a better husband, father, and brother after dinner than before is, digestively speaking, an incurably vicious man.

But in these modern times it may be decidedly asserted as a fact, that vice, in accomplishing the vast majority of its seductions, uses no disguise at all; appears impudently in its naked deformity; and, instead of horrifying all beholders, in accordance with the prediction of the classical satirist, absolutely attracts a much more numerous congregation of worshippers than has ever yet been brought together by the divinest beauties that virtue can display for the allurement of mankind.

Forgive me, dear Mr. Troy! I am very unhappy, and very unreasonable - but I am only a woman, and you must not expect too much from me.

Here, then, was one of my anticipations of the morning still unfulfilled. I began to wonder, next, whether my introduction to Miss Fairlie would disappoint the expectations that I had been forming of her since breakfast-time.

No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.

The answer almost unmanned me.

The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.

I used to attend scientific experiments when I was a girl at school. They invariably ended in an explosion. If Mr. Jennings will be so very kind, I should like to be warned of the explosion this time. With a view to getting it over, if possible, before I go to bed.

If he was right, here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond - bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man.

That gate," said the under-gardener, turning with great deliberation towards the south, and embracing the whole of that part of England with one comprehensive sweep of his arm. "Curious,

So do extremes meet; and such is sometimes the all-embracing capacity of the approval of a fool!

Some of us rush through life and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life.

The secret which that confession discloses should be told with little effort, for it has indirectly escaped me already. The poor weak words, which have failed to describe Miss Fairlie, have succeeded in betraying the sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all. Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.
I loved her.

Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if only you pull it in the right way.

The English intellect is sound, so far as it goes,but it has one grave defect
it is always cautious in the wrong place.

There is nothing serious in mortality! Solomon in all his glory was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace.

I turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her. Miss Halcombe was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking at me attentively.

In all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet.

Through all the ways of our unintelligible world, the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together.

The clouds had gathered, within the last half-hour. The light was dull; the distance was dim. The lovely face of Nature met us, soft and still and colourless – met us without a smile.

There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do.They can't sit over their wine;they can't play at wist;and they can't pay a lady a compliment.

were we two following our widely parted roads towards one point in the mysterious future, at which we were to meet once more?

The deserts of Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation-the ruins of Palestine are incapable of our modern gloom!

Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.

He has trifled with the sacred memory of my husband," thought the Professor's widow. "On my life and honor, I will make him pay for it.

Is it necessary to say what my first impression was when I looked at my visitor's card? Surely not! My sister having married a foreigner, there was but one impression that any man in his senses could possibly feel. Of course the Count had come to borrow money of me.
"Louis," I said, "do you think he would go away if you gave him five shillings?

So the ghostly figure which has haunted these pages, as it haunted my life, goes down into the impenetrable gloom. Like a shadow she first came to me in the loneliness of the night. Like a shadow she passes away in the loneliness of the dead

The bleak autumn wind was still blowing, and the solemn, surging moan of it in the wood was dreary and awful to hear through the night silence. Issac felt strangely wakeful. He resolved, as he lay down in bed, to keep the candle alight until he began to grow sleepy; for there was something unendurably depressing in the bare idea of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal, ceaseless moan of the wind in the wood. ("The Dream Woman")

expression - nothing

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

I dread the beginning of her new life more than words can tell, but I see some hope for her if she travels - none if she remains at home.

The sound of my voice brought the life back to her limbs, and the colour to her face. She advanced, on her side, still without speaking. Slowly, as if acting under some influence independent of her own will, she came nearer and nearer to me; the warm dusky colour flushing her cheeks, the light of reviving intelligence brightening every instant in her eyes. I forgot the object that had brought me into her presence; I forgot the vile suspicion that rested on my good name; I forgot every consideration, past, present, and future, which I was bound to remember. I saw nothing but the woman I loved coming nearer and nearer to me. She trembled; she stood irresolute. I could resist it no longer--I caught her in my arms, and covered her face with kisses.

Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them.

Did you fall asleep?"
"No. I couldn't sleep that night."
"You were restless?"
"I was thinking of you."
The answer almost unmanned me. Something in the tone, even more than in the words, went straight to my heart. It was only after pausing a little first that I was able to go on.

"No. I" title="Wilkie Collins Quotes: Did you fall asleep?"
"No. I" width="913px" height="515px" loading="lazy"/>

The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality called 'conscience.' In one state of a man's mind, his conscience is the severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he and his conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in the comfortable capacity of accomplices.

My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all in love with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman's heart? In all my experience I have never yet met with the man who was Number One. Number Two, sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five, often. Number One, never! He exists, of course - but, I have not met with him.

IT wanted little more than a fortnight to Christmas; but the weather showed no signs yet of the frost and snow, conventionally associated with the coming season. The atmosphere was unnaturally warm, and the old year was dying feebly in sapping rain and enervating mist.

This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

Mr. Bruff, I'm ordered to take exercise and I don't like it. That, added Aunt Ablewhite, pointing out of window to an invalid going by in a chair on wheels, drawn by a man, is my idea of exercise. If it's air you want, you get it in your chair. And if it's fatique you want, I am sure it's fatiquing enough to look at the man.

It is truly wonderful," he said, "how easily Society can console itself for the worst of its shortcomings with a little bit of clap-trap. The machinery it has set up for the detection of crime is miserably ineffective - and yet only invent a moral epigram, saying that it works well, and you blind everybody to its blunders from that moment. Crimes cause their own detection, do they? And murder will out (another moral epigram), will it? Ask Coroners who sit at inquests in large towns if that is true, Lady Glyde. Ask secretaries of life-assurance companies if that is true, Miss Halcombe. Read your own public journals. In the few cases that get into the newspapers, are there not instances of slain bodies found, and no murderers ever discovered? Multiply the cases that are reported by the cases that are not reported, and the bodies that are found by the bodies that are not found, and what conclusion do you come to? This. That there are foolish criminals who are discovered, and wise criminals who escape. The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police in nine cases out of ten win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police in nine cases out of ten lose. If the police win, you generally hear all about it. If the police lose, you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering foundation you build u

I paid the cabman exactly his fare. He received it with an oath; upon which I instantly gave him a tract. If I had presented a pistol at his head, this abandoned wretch could hardly have exhibited greater consternation. He jumped up on his box, and, with profane exclamations of dismay, drove off furiously. Quite useless, I am happy to say! I sowed the good seed, in spite of him, by throwing a second tract in at the window of the cab.

There was no mistaking the expression on her face. I inspired her with the strongest emotions of abhorrence and disgust. Let me not be vain enough to say that no woman had ever looked at me in this manner before. I will only venture on the more modest assertion that no woman had ever let me perceive it yet.

Now I will be anything else you please, except dull. You may say I have been dull already? As I am an honest woman, I don't agree with you. There are some people who bring dull minds to their reading - and them blame the writer for it. I say no more.

I must really rest a little before I can get on any farther. When I have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when Louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-de-Cologne, I may be able to proceed.

The sketch of the summer-house which she had given me on the morning of our farewell, and which had never been separated from me since, was the birthday of our first hope.

Now, tell me, my dear, I said, what are you crying about?
About the years that are gone, Mr. Betteredge," says Rosanna quietly. My past life still comes back to me sometimes.
Come, come, my girl, I said, your past life is all sponged out. Why can't you forget it?
"She took me by one of the lappets of my coat. I am a slovenly old man, and a good deal of my meat and drink gets splashed about on my clothes. Sometimes one of the women, and sometimes another, cleans me of my grease. The day before, Roseanna had taken out a spot for me on the lappet of my coat, with a new composition, warranted to remove anything. The grease was gone, but there was a little dull place left on the nap of the cloth where the grease had been. The girl pointed to that place, and shook here head.
The stain is taken off, she said. But the place shows, Mr. Betteredge
the place shows!

We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism - here there was nothing but tragedy - mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible.

There was genuine regret in his face as he showed her that trifling attention. He was a vagabond and a cheat; he had lived a mean, shuffling, degraded life, but he was human; and she had found her way to the lost sympathies in him which not even the self-profanation of a swindler's existence could wholly destroy. "Damn

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

The dress of Virtue, in our parts, was cotton print. I had silk.