Alexander Van Helsing

“[Charlotte Brontë] once told her sisters that they were wrong - even morally wrong - in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.”
― Stendhal, On Love

“Tremblingly alive to a sense of delight, and unchilled by disappointment, the young heart welcomes every feeling, not simply painful, with a romantic expectation that it will expand into bliss.”
― Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance