“Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.”
― Of Human Bondage
― Of Human Bondage
“Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.”
― The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion
― The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion
“No anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you.”
― The Mill on the Floss
― The Mill on the Floss
“Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale.”
― Dawn of the Dreadfuls
― Dawn of the Dreadfuls
“She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel – that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.”
― The Mill on the Floss
― The Mill on the Floss
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