230 Quotes by Wilkie Collins

I must really rest a little before I can get on any farther. When I have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when Louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-de-Cologne, I may be able to proceed.

Her heart beat as if it would suffocate her. She had kept her promise bravely. The whole story of her life, from the time of the home-wreck at Combe-Raven to the time when she had destroyed the Secret Trust in her sister’s presence, had been all laid before him. Nothing that she had done, nothing even that she had thought, had been concealed from his knowledge.

The upshot of it was, that Rosanna Spearman had been a thief, and not being of the sort that get up Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her, and the prison and the reformatory followed the lead of the law.

May I ask a question, doctor? Is she pining in this close place, too? When her sister comes, will her sister take her away?

Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form – large and tender and quietly thoughtful – but beautiful above all things in the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their inmost depths, and shines through all their changes of expression with the light of a purer and a better world.

Human life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target – misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark.

I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me?

You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably. Here is an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others. In the meantime, I will go on with my story.

The small pulse of the life within me and the great heart of th city around me seemed to be sinking in unison.