Paul Morel Quotes

“Paul felt life changing around him. The conditions of youth were gone.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“You, you might marry, a man who would not pour himself out like fire before you.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Isn't it beautiful?" she pleaded.
But he only scowled. He would rather have had it ugly just then.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“When I talk to you, I do not look at you, often, for, can you understand, I do not talk to your eyes, though they are dark and fine, nor to your ears, hidden under a graceful toss of silky hair - but to you away inside, beyond.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Are you always like this?" he asked. "Loathing the very flesh on your bones, and the words of your mouth?"
"It's only the unnatural things," she replied. "When things natural they are beautiful."
"And what isn't natural?" he asked.
"Everything man had made," she answered, "including himself.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Because I feel you did something to him - sort of broke him - broke his manliness. What did you do?"
"If I broke his manliness, it must have been a very easy thing to break.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“I look at my hands, and wonder what they are doing there. That water there ripples right through me. I'm sure that I am that rippling. It runs right through me, and I through it. There are no barriers between us... A sort of disseminates consciousness, that's all there is of me. I feel as if my body were laying empty, as if I were in the other things - clouds and water-... the individual bodily me is discarded. But if so then I am not alive here. I'm sure it would destroy me.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Miriam entered.
"All alone?" she said.
"Yes."
As if at home, she took off her tam o'shanter and her long coat, hanging them up. It gave him a thrill. This might be their own house, his and hers.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Light, old boy?" said Beatrice, tilting her cigarette at him.
He bent forward to her to light his cigarette at hers. She was winking at him as he did so. Miriam saw his eyes trembling with mischief, and his full, almost sensual mouth quivering. He was not himself, and she could not bear it. As he was now, she had no connection with him, she might as well not have existed. She saw the cigarette dancing on his full red lips. She hated his thick hair for being tumbled loose on his forehead.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Her dark eyes were naked with their love, afraid, and yearning. His eyes too were dark, and they hurt her. They seemed to master her.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Suddenly he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap, turing the bread. For Miriam he was too quick. She started violently, and it hurt her with real pain. Even the way he crouched before the oven hurt her. There seemed to her something cruel in it, something cruel in the swift way he pitched the bread out of the. tins, caught it up again. If only he had been gentle in his movements, she would have felt so rich and warm. As it was, she was hurt.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Now it was spring and there was a battle between him and Miriam. This year he had a good deal against her. She was vaguely aware of it. The old feeling that she would be a sacrifice to this love, which she had had when she prayed, was mingled in all her emotions. She did not at the bottom believe she ever would have him. She did not believe in herself, primarily: doubted whether she could ever be what he would demand of her. Certainly she never saw herself living happily through a life-time with him. She saw tragedy, sorrow, and sacrifice ahead. And in sacrifice she was proud, in renunciation she was strong; for she did not trust herself to support everyday life. She was prepared for the big things and deep things, like tragedy. It was the sufficiency of the small day-life she could not trust.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Can you never like things without clutching them as if you wanted to pull the heart out of them? Why don't you have a bit more restraint or reserve or something?"
She looked up at him, full of pain, then continued slowly to stroke her lips against a ruffled flower. Their scent, as she smelled it, was so much kinder than he, it almost made her cry...
He scarcely knew what he was saying. These things came from him mechanically. She looked at him. His body seemed one weapon, firm and hard against her.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“What is it?" she pleaded softly.
He lay perfectly still, only his eyes alive, and they full of torment.
"You know," he said at length, rather wearily, "you know - we'd better break off."
I was what she dreaded. Swiftly, everything seemed to darken before her eyes.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Do you think we love each other enough to marry?" he asked, definitely. It made her tremble.
"No," she answered, truthfully. "I don't think so - we're too young."
"I thought perhaps," he went on miserably, "that you, with your intensity in things, might have given more - than I could ever make up to you. - And even now - if you think it better - we'll be engaged."
Now Miriam wanted to cry. And she was angry too. He was always such a child, for people to do as they liked with.
"No, I don't think so," she said firmly.
He pondered a minute.
"You see," he said, "with me - I don't think one person would ever monopolise me - be everything to me - I think never."
This she did not consider...
"You stop away, will you?"
She did not answer. By this time she was very angry.
"Well, what shall we do?" she said shortly. "I suppose I'd better drop French. I was just beginning to get on with it. - But I suppose I can go alone."
"I don't see that we need," he said. "I can give you a French lesson, surely."
"Well - and there are Sunday nights. I shan't stop coming to chapel, because I enjoy it, and it's all the social life I get. But you've no need to come home with me. I can go alone."
"All right," he answered, rather taken aback... "And you won't think about it, and let it trouble you, will you?" he asked.
"Oh no," replied Miriam, without looking at him.
He was silent. She thought him unstable. He had no fixity of purpose, no anchor of righteousness that held him.
"Because," he continued, "a man gets across his bicycle - and goes to work - and does all sorts of things. But a woman broods."
"No, I shan't bother," said Miriam. And she meant it.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Miriam sat in the rocking-chair, and did not speak. He hesitated, expecting her to rise and go with him to the barn as usual for his bicycle. She remained as she was. He was at a loss.
"Well - goodnight all!" he faltered.
She spoke her goodnight along with all the others. But as he went past the window, he looked in. She saw him pale, his brows knit slightly in a way that had become constant with him, his eyes dark with pain.
She rose and went to the doorway to wave goodbye to him as he passes through the gate. He rode slowly under the pine trees, feeling a cur and a miserable wretch. His bicycle went tilting down the hills at random. He thought it would be a relief to break one's neck.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John. And he sat in the arm-chair, reading, intent, his voice only thinking, she felt as if he was using her unconsciously, as a man uses his tools at some work he is bent on. She loved it. And the wistfulness of his voice was like a reaching to something, and it was as if she were what he reached with. She sat back on the sofa, away from him, and yet feeling herself the very instrument his hand grasped. It gave her great pleasure.
Then he began to flater, and to get self-conscious. And when he came to the verse: "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow because her hour is come," he missed it out. Miriam had felt him growing uncomfortable. She shrank when the well-known words did not follow. He went on reading, but she did not hear. A grief and shame made her bend her head.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He said he did not like her. Yet he was keen to know about her. Well, he should put himself to the test. She believed that there were in him desired for higher things, and desires for lower, and that the desire for the higher would conquer. At any rate, he should try. She forget that her 'higher' and 'lower' were arbitrary.”
― D.H. Lawrence

“She did not mind if he observed her hands. She intended to scorn him. Her heavy arm lay negligently on the table. Her mouth was closed as if she were offended, and she kept her face slightly averted.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“I think she's a lovable little woman," said Paul.
"Margaret Bonford!" exclaimed Clara. "She's a great deal cleverer than most men."
"Well, I didn't say she wasn't," he said, deprecating. "She's lovable for all that."
"And of course that is all that matter," said Clara witheringly.
He rubbed his head, rather perplexed, rather annoyed.
"I suppose it matters more than her cleverness," he said; "-which after all would never get her to heaven."
"It's not heaven she wants to get - it's her fair share on earth," retorted Clara...
"I thought she was warm, and awfully nice - only too frail. I wished she was sitting comfortably in peace-"
"'Darning her husband's stockings'," said Clara, scatchingly.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He kneeled one one knee, quickly gathering the best blossoms, moving from tuft to tuft restlessly, talking soft all the time. Miriam plucked the flowers lovingly, lingering over them. He always seemed to her too quick and almost scientific. Yet his bunches had a natural beauty more than hers. He loved them, but as if they were his and he had a right to them. She had more reverence for them: they held something she had not...
Clara was still wandering about disconsolately. Going towards her, he said:
"Why don't you get some?"
"I don't believe in it. They look better growing.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Miriam had one beautiful evening with him in the hay... he talked to her of his hopes and despairs, and his whole soul seemed to lie bare before her. She felt as if she watched the very quivering stuff of life in him. The moon came out: they walked home together: he seemed to have come to her because he needed her so badly.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“She turned her back on him. Yet, everybody could see, that the only person she listened to, or was conscious of, was he, and he of her. It pleased the men to see this battle between them. But Miriam was tortured.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Miriam read this letter twice, after which she sealed it up. A year later she broke the seal to show her mother the letter.
"You are a nun - you are a nun" - the words went into her heart again and again. Nothing he ever had said, had gone into her so deeply, fixedly, like a mortal wound.
She answered him two days after the party. "'Our intimacy would have been all beautiful, but for one little mistake,'" she quoted.
"Was the mistake mine?”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar, she thought of her eldest son. But this son was living enough inside the clothes. She passed her hand down his back to feel him. He was alive and hers.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“That's a woman's whole doctrine for life - ease of soul and physical comfort. And I do despise it."
"Oh do you!" replied his mother. "And do you call yours a divine discontent?"
"Yes - I don't care about its divinity. But damn your happiness! So long as life's full, it doesn't matter whether it's happy or not. I'm afraid your happiness would bore me."...
"But I want you to be happy," she said, pathetically.
"Eh my dear - say rather you want me to live."
Mrs Morel felt as if her heart would break for him. At this rate, she knew he would not live. He had that poignant carelessness about himself, his own suffering, his own life, which is a form of slow suicide.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“There was about him a candour, and gentleness, which made the women trust him. He understood.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“There was a certain weight on his heart, which he wanted to remove. He thought to do it by offering her chocolates.
"Have one?" he said. "I brought a handful to sweeten me up."
To his great relief, she accepted...
"There is always about you," he said, "a sort of waiting. Whatever I see you doing, you're not really there, you are waiting - like Penelope when she did her weaving."...
"I don't know what you want," she said, continuing her task.
"I want you to treat me nicely and respectfully."
"Call you 'Sir', perhaps?" she asked quietly.
"Yes, call me Sire. I should love it."
"Then I wish you would go upstairs, Sir.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“He was filled with the warmth of her. In the glow, he could almost feel her as if she were present.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“Her hand lay on the gate-post as she balanced. He put his own over it. His heart beat thickly.
"But did you - were you ever - did you give him a chance?"
"Chance? - how?"
"To come near you."
"Iw married him - and I was willing-"
They both strove to keep their voices steady.
"I believe he loves you," he said.
"It looks like it," she replied.
He wanted to take his hand away, and could not. She saved him by removing her own.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers