ishmael > ishmael's Quotes

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Call me Ishmael.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Come in! come in !’ he sobbed.
‘Cathy, do come. Oh do -once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time - Catherine, at last!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“I'll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!”
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!' he said. 'It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God! Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“For a second I had the ridiculous feeling that they were there to judge me.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I hope the dogs don't bark tonight. I always think it's mine”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I fixed myself some eggs and ate them out of the ban, without bread because I didn't have any left and I didn't feel like going downstairs to buy some.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“parricide”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“When she laughed I wanted her again.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I’d been right, I was still right, I was always right.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I didn't say anything, and he asked me again if i wanted to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed pleased.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I went to bed without any dinner.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Then she remarked that marriage was a serious matter.

To which I answered: "No.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“For now, it's almost as if Maman weren't dead. After the funeral, though, the case will be closed, and everything will have a more official feel to it.
pg.3”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“that's all for the present!”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Only the words "yesterday" and "tomorrow" still had any meaning for me.”
― Albert Camus, L'Étranger

“So for me Meursault is not a reject, but a poor and naked man, in love with a sun which leaves no shadows. Far from lacking all sensibility, he is driven by a tenacious and therefore profound passion, the passion for an absolute and for truth.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Afterwards he wanted to go to a whorehouse, but I said no, because I don’t like that.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“I have to remind myself to breathe -- almost to remind my heart to beat!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Healthcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“You said I killed you-haunt me, then! [...] Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights