“If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.”

It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,’ he answered. ‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?

That is how I’m loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he’s in my soul.

A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Cold in the earth and the deeps now piled above thee, Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, Severed at last byTime’s all-serving wave?

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go.

Wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Look on the grave where thou must sleep Thy last, and strongest foe; It is endurance not to weep, If that repose seem woe.

Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous.

It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.

It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town.

I see heaven’s glories shine and faith shines equal.

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But if you be afraid of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in.

I can say with sincerity that I like cats. A cat is an animal which has more human feelings than almost any other.

Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity.

I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after.

The Booker triumph of Graham Swift’s moving, effortlessly profound Last Orders is a vindication of the quiet, much-misunderstood path this fine writer chose to take after the brilliance of Waterland more than ten years ago.

Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

I would steal the sun, if that is what it took to bring the light back into your eyes.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

You told me you went to hell and back for my sake, when I see your face no signs or trace or effort “for my sake”; here you go again with your lies, go back to hell where you’re welcome to stay.

People leave because staying requires effort.