Winston Graham Quotes

Instead, the room, which had seen her grow to maturity, would see her dry up and fade. The gilt mirror in the corner would bear its dispassionate testimony. All the ornaments and furnishings would be her companions through the years to come. And she realized that she would come to hate them, if she didn't already hate them, as one hates the witnesses of one's humiliation and futility. ~ Winston Graham

Youth was so mercilessly hard in its decisions; it had its own unyielding standards and had not yet learned enough to know that time would prove them arbitrary. ~ Winston Graham

Tenderness is not like money: the more you give to one, the more you have for others. ~ Winston Graham

It isn't very pretty to have been made a fool of by one's own feelings,' he said. 'To take childish promises and build a--a castle out of them... ~ Winston Graham

through all the monotony and the splendor of life. ~ Winston Graham

Music, she thought, perhaps could be a continuing process, like life, a shedding of one skin as fast as another grew. Instead every tune seemed to exist with its notes firmly rooted in an event or an emotion or a period of time. ~ Winston Graham

A nice frame doesn't make a nice picture. ~ Winston Graham

down. Below this the water was ~ Winston Graham

The case is closed, Mr. Poldark. You will kindly step down." "Otherwise," said Dr. Halse, "we will have you committed for contempt of court." Ross bowed slightly. "I can only assure you, sir, that such a committal would be a reading of my inmost thoughts. ~ Winston Graham

The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and - and to love in return. ~ Winston Graham

All men were born in the same way: no privilege existed that was not of man's own contriving. ~ Winston Graham

Jud threw down the turfs he had brought in. "If you learned her to hold 'er tongue," he said pettishly to his wife, "'twould be a sight betterer than learning 'er that. If you learned 'er manners, how to speak respectable to folk and answer respectable an' be respectable to her elders an' betters, 'twould be a sight betterer than that. Then ye could pat yourself on the 'ead and say, 'Thur, I'm doing a tidy job, learning her to be respectable.' But what are 'ee doing? Tedn't 'ard to answer. Tedn't 'ard to see. You're learning her to be sassy. ~ Winston Graham

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 ~ Winston Graham

Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection. ~ Winston Graham

He pronounced some of his words as if they were corks being drawn out of bottles. ~ 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. On ~ Winston Graham

Men's tongues in some things outrun women's. ~ Winston Graham

...are not all women treated by all men like something inferior, like chattels you take up and put down at will? ~ Winston Graham

There's no paradise in love! It's--you're thinking in the wrong way. Love--the sort you're asking me for--is of the earth, earthy. Beautiful, maybe--sometimes it be like a gold mine that one digs into. But of the earth--earthy. Tis all wrong to speak of paradise. Love may be the nearest human beings can get--but it is still outside the gates--for it is human--easily lost--animal in the way it work, though more, much more than animal. Oftentimes it--uplifts, transports...but--but it should not be mistaken. It is a--a terrible mistake to pretend it is something quite different. ~ Winston Graham

It isn't where you're born in this world, it's what you do. ~ Winston Graham

I think, sir,' said Demelza, 'that your apricot tart is about to be laced viz cream and rum, and you would do well to discover wezzer you can attempt zat. ~ Winston Graham

If every one of you was to clean before his own front door, all would be clean of cow flops. ~ Winston Graham

Of course he'll bring no money. Nor never will. He's not the type to--accumulate. But it's a good name to have. And he's becoming a personality in the county. One never knows quite why this happens, eh? Not so much what a man does. More a matter of character. ~ Winston Graham

I am enceinte, gravid, pregnant, in pup, call it what you will. No doubt there are as many names for the production of a child as for the act which initiates it. ~ Winston Graham

On the Monday morning, with the rain still pouring down, Ross went in to see Drake, who was sitting up in bed and, apart from the bandaged shoulder and the plastered fingers, was now looking more substantial than Dwight. Perhaps this too was not surprising. At nineteen, if a man does not die from a wound, he quickly gets better. 'So,' said Ross. 'I thought I might have had to take your sister home some bad news.' Drake smiled. All the damned family, Ross thought, had this wonderful smile. They had certainly not inherited it from their father. 'No, sur. I ~ Winston Graham

I have never been clever enough - or egotistical enough to spend 300 pages dipping into the sludge of my own subconscious. ~ Winston Graham

He felt he would like one more look at the sea, which even now was licking at the rocks behind the house. He had no sentimental notions about the sea; he had no regard for its dangers or its beauties; to him it was a close acquaintance whose every virtue and failing, every smile and tantrum he had come to understand. ~ Winston Graham

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. ~ Winston Graham

...in the best society hardly anyone can be certain who their father is. ~ Winston Graham

Not for the first time he was conscious of emotional lights and shades in his wife that could not be categorized, could not be named as sensuous or emotional as such, perhaps derived from each and gave to each but in essence grew out of a deeper fund of temperament that he still could not altogether apprehend. The simple miner's daughter was not simple in character at all. ~ Winston Graham

I suspect that for a good deal of the time you live in a sort of glass case, not knowing real enthusiasm or genuine emotion; or feeling them perhaps at second hand, feeling them sometimes because you think you ought to, not because you really do. ~ Winston Graham

once had been. The ~ Winston Graham

I think you must have your feelings under a very good control. You turn them about and face them the way you want them to be. I wish I could do that. What's the secret? ~ Winston Graham

Wishing is like water caught in a dam. You let a little trickle of it escape and you don't think it's much, but in no time the trickle has worn a channel and the edges fall in and the water's doubled and then you get a flood carrying everything away. ~ Winston Graham

and Ross was limping by the end of it. He rode a horse longer than he walked these days. Then it was an asking and a questing, a seeking among dark and sprawling figures, the thumb jerked, the finger pointed. Ross's escort moved like a small Scottish ferret from group to group. At last a man sat up and said: 'Yes, I'm Poldark. Who wants me?' 'One of your own blood,' said Ross. 'Who else?' There was a startled oath, and a thin man scrambled to his feet. He had been lying, his back propped against a tree, his scabbard across his knees. He peered in the uncertain starlight. 'By the Lord God! It's Uncle Ross!' 'Geoffrey Charles! I never ~ Winston Graham

Ross said: "I'll tell you what is best for the other man, always, and that's work. Work is a challenge. I've told you – I tried to drink myself out of my misery once. It didn't succeed. Only work did. It's the solvent to so much. Build yourself a wall, even if there's hell in your heart, and when it's done – even at the end of the first day – you feel better. ~ Winston Graham

Out of sight would not be out of mind, but it would at least be out of danger. ~ Winston Graham

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. ~ Winston Graham

Give me the comma of imperfect striving, thus to find zest in the immediate living. Ever the reaching but never the gaining, ever the climbing but never the attaining of the mountain top. ~ Winston Graham

An hour before dawn they went down to the cove, following the bubble of the stream and the descending combe, with a glowworm here and there green-lit like a jewel in the dark. ~ Winston Graham

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). ~ Winston Graham

feel that, however steady a man is, if he has an unstable wife to whom he is devoted, then there is a corrosion at work on his own foundations. ~ Winston Graham

I believe yours is the only wisdom, Demelza. ~ Winston Graham

For life is a trumpery thing at best, isn't it? A few moments, a few words, between dark and dark. But in true love you keep company with the Gods. ~ Winston Graham

I'm afraid they would droop. See, they're drooping already. Bluebells are like that. ~ Winston Graham

The awful catastrophe of their quarrel had evaporated in a commonplace. He ~ Winston Graham

Demelza thought: She's one day too late, just one day. How beautiful she is; how I hate her. Then she glanced at Ross again, and for the first time like the stab of a treacherous knife it occurred to her that Ross's desire for her last night was a flicker for empty passion. All day she had been too preoccupied with her own feelings to spare time for his. Now she could see so much in his eyes. ~ Winston Graham

The waves were shadows, snakes under a quilt, creeping in almost unseen until they emerged in milky ripples at the water's edge. ~ Winston Graham

Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them. ~ Winston Graham

I have been under considerable pressure to buy at least a laptop computer. I have always turned the suggestions down for the reason that I have never done creative work on a typewriter. There is to me a lack of empathy. ~ Winston Graham

Making money at gambling was like seeing ghosts: you never met someone who'd seen a ghost, only someone who knew someone who'd seen a ghost. You only met people who knew people who'd made a fortune at White's. Or on the racecourse. ~ Winston Graham

He wondered if the real world was that one in which men fought for policies and principles and died or lived gloriously - or more often miserably - for the sake of an abstract word like patriotism or independence, or if reality belonged to the humble people and the common land. ~ Winston Graham

His was not an easy face to read, and no one could have told that in the past half hour he had suffered the worst knock of his life. Except that he no longer whistled into the wind or talked to his irritable mare, there was nothing to show. ~ Winston Graham

Oh dear, thought Demelza, how strange it all is! Me, sitting here, a mother, like a middle-aged dowager, moving in the best circles, behaving with prim propriety, hands folded on reticule, feet politely together, smiling graciously when spoken to, inclining the head this way and that, the perfect lady; when I've still got two scars on my back from my father's leather strap, and I learned to swear and curse and spit before I was seven, and I crawled with lice and ate what food I could find lying in the gutter, and had six dirty undernourished brothers all younger than me to look after. ~ Winston Graham

In order to destroy this system which we so much detest we are creating conditions over here which run contrary to our dearest p-principles. ~ Winston Graham

Qualified help was weak and timid. Either you come out dead against the attachment or else help without reservation, without giving the impression of reluctance and disapproval. ~ Winston Graham

Everyone," Ross said, "seems a little less concerned than I do. Am I more tender-hearted for others or only tender because of my own conscience?"
"We are not–untender," she said. "Not so. But maybe we are more–resigned. When a man is condemned to death we accept it, though it's sad to do so. We know we cannot change it. You hoped to change it–so it's more of a–a disappointment. You feel you have failed. We don't feel that because we never hoped to succeed. ~ Winston Graham

At that, his smile faded and he kissed her. "Ross," she said. "Dear Ross." "I love you," he said, "and am your servant. Demelza, look at me. If I've done wrong in the past, give me leave to make amends." So he found that what he had half despised was not despicable, that what had been for him the satisfaction of an appetite, a pleasant but commonplace adventure in disappointment, owned wayward and elusive depths he had not known before, and carried the knowledge of beauty in its heart. ~ Winston Graham

All I knew was that I was writing something out of my very guts, and that I was content. ~ Winston Graham

His parents should be here soon. I shall feel happier when they are able to take the responsibility. ~ Winston Graham

I was very happy, I think part of the point of this creativity is to do something that helps you in a cathartic sense. ~ Winston Graham

That's all that matters. The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and - and to love in return. People who haven't got it - or had it - don't believe that, but it's the truth. ~ Winston Graham

But fear and fascination are yokefellows, oxen out of step but pulling in the same direction... ~ Winston Graham

George stared across the street. 'There is only one trouble with the Poldarks,' he said after a moment. 'They cannot take a beating.'
'And only one trouble with the Warleggans,' said Ross. 'They never know when they are not wanted.'
George's color deepened. 'But they can appreciate and remember an insult.'
'Well, I trust you will remember this one.' Ross turned his back and went down the steps into the tavern. ~ Winston Graham

If you wish to discover a man's true feelings, it is always best to provoke him. ~ Winston Graham

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

Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones. ~ Winston Graham

Someone - a Latin poet - had defined eternity as no more than this: to hold and possess the whole fullness of life in one moment, there and then, past and present and to come. ~ Winston Graham

It is a mistake to restrict oneself in one's pleasures,' Ross said. 'One should never risk being thought a Puritan. ~ Winston Graham

...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. ~ Winston Graham

inclined his head and moved off slowly across the beach. Tbe captain ~ Winston Graham

Yes, it was a "beautiful" sermon, tugging the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there perhaps two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, this was a special occasion...But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away? ~ Winston Graham

Demelza said: 'It seems to me no man is wise enough if the woman is not wise enough.' Ross ~ Winston Graham

These days I often have a struggle not to feel inferior to you, that is in your judgment of human beings.' 'I don't think I have any judgment, at least not to be proud of. But perhaps I am nearer the earth than you. Like Garrick, I can smell a friend. ~ Winston Graham

When you bring an idealised relationship down to the level of an ordinary one it isn't necessarily the ordinary one that suffers'. ~ Winston Graham

And Ross again knew himself to be happy-in a new and less ephemeral way than before. He was filled with a queer sense of enlightnment. It seemed to him that all his life had moved to this pinpoint of time down the scattered threads of twenty years; from his old childhood running thoughtless and barefoot in the sun on Hendrawna sands, from Demelza's birth in the squarlor of a mining cottage, from the plains of Virginia and the trampled fairgrounds of Redruth, from the complex impulses which had governed Elizabeth's choice of Francis and from the simple philosophies of Demelza's own faith, all had been animated to a common end-and that end a moment of enlightenment and understanding and completion. Someone--a Latin poet--had defined eternity as no more than this: to hold and possess the whole fullness of life in one moment, here and now, past and present and to come. He thought: if we could only stop here. Not when we get home, not leaving Trenwith, but here, here reaching the top of the hill out of Sawle, dusk wiping out the edges of the land and Demelza walking and humming at my side. ~ Winston Graham

In the depths of horror and despair, one comes to a new steadiness. There is no farther to fall. ~ Winston Graham

Perhaps you're right; we don't ever regain what we lightly lose. ~ Winston Graham

Everything at the moment, my dear, no doubt seems disgusting. I know the mood too well. But being in that mood, Ross, is like being out in the frost. If we do not keep on the move we shall perish. ~ Winston Graham

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 . . . ~ Winston Graham

showed where the ancient pewter teapot had leaked. At the other end was a scattering of crumbs left by the ~ Winston Graham

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 . . . ~ Winston Graham

Refreshment is the remedy for all manner of embarrassments. ~ Winston Graham

much in it,' said Paul, pushing the broadsheet across. 'You don't ask me ~ Winston Graham

Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music. ~ Winston Graham

You see, Ross, in every right marriage, in every good marriage a woman has to be three things, don't she? She's got to be a wife and look after a man's comforts in the way a man should be looked after. Then she's got to bear his children and get all swelled up like a summer pumpkin and then often-times feed them after and smell of babies and have them crawling all about her...But then, third, she has also to try and be his mistress at the same time; someone he is still interested in; someone he wants, not just the person who happens to be there and convenient; someone a bit mysterious...someone whose knee or -- or shoulder he wouldn't instantly recognize if he saw it beside him in bed. It's -- it's impossible. ~ Winston Graham

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

There were no tears in her. The wound went too deep, or she was not so constituted to give way to it. Hers would be the perpetual ache of loss and loneliness, slowly dulled with time until it became a part of her character, a faint sourness tinged with withered pride. ~ Winston Graham

Her shadow kept her company along the corridor to her bedroom, preceding her like a welcoming innkeeper. ~ Winston Graham

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

He found, quite to his surprise, that he was happy. Not merely happy in Demelza's happiness but in himself. He couldn't think why. The condition just existed within him. ~ Winston Graham

If he ever changes his stance on something, it's because he's received new information. ~ Heather Graham

Technology is at the forefront of everything these days - communication, work. It's amazing and scary at the same time how robots have evolved, but I find it hard to believe that robots will completely rule the world. Not in my lifetime anyway. ~ Graham McTavish

He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied. ~ Graham Greene

Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.
- Winston S. Churchill ~ Ellen Brazer

She knew that by the morning she would be suffering from arse-ache. She smiled, remembering how, as a child, this was what she thought women were suffering from when their husbands went missing at sea. Arse-ache-heartache, they could sound the same to her. ~ Graham Higson

If it is Christian, it will be Bible-centered. ~ Billy Graham

Faith isn't pretending our problems don't exist, nor is it simply blind optimism. Faith points us beyond our problems to the hope we have in Christ. ~ Billy Graham

It's good to be able to be a leading lady, to be a romantic lead, to play opposite people who are talented, and charismatic and stuff. ~ Heather Graham

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can. ~ Winston S. Churchill