North And South Quotes

“He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor lead enviable lives -- envied, that is, by work-driven, sensually inhibted, less corruptly governed northerners. We are superior to them, say the northerners, clearly superior. We do not shirk our duties or tell lies as a matter of course, we work hard, we are punctual, we keep reliable accounts. But they have more fun than we do ... They caution[ed] themselves as people do who know they are part of a superior culture: we mustn't let ourselves go, mustn't descend to the level of the ... jungle, street, bush, bog, hills, outback (take your pick). For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book, developing a sense of rhythm, making love whenever you feel like it -- then you know. The south has got you.”
― Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover

“There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Come poor little heart! be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“I ask Thee for a thoughtful love, Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathise.”
― Anon, North and South

“The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none, but He knows the bitterness of our souls.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell

“I do not know whether I am brave or not till I am tried...”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“So much was understood through eyes that could not be put into words.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“My young lady, you've a pretty good temper of your own.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Come poor little heart! be cheery and brave.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“But courage, little heart. We will turn back, and by God's help we may find the lost path.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she ever read or heard of in romance. . .”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“O que eles não poderiam entender é como seu coração sofria, o tempo todo, com um peso que não havia suspiro que remediasse ou aliviasse – e como o empenho constante das suas capacidades perceptivas fora o único meio de evitar que gritasse de dor”
― Elizabeth Gaskell

“He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind--a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“He never looked at her, and yet, the careful avoidance of his eyes betokened that in some way he knew exactly where, if they fell by chance, they would rest on her.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Your poor mother's fond wish, gratified at last in the mocking way in which over-fond wished are too often fulfilled.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Nay, John, there is no need to be angry. Did she not rush down and cling to you to save you from danger?”

“She did!” said he. “But, mother,” continued he, stopping short in his walk right in front of her. “I dare not hope. I never was faint-hearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell

“Oh, my Margaret—my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead—cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret—Margaret!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell

“For [Beth] Davis, Fitzgerald's [Louisiana] story carried another, broader message for Americans. 'If veterans could come together so soon after the War and forgive and forget, then surely we can overcome our differences,' she said. 'Old wounds were healed here, old barriers overcome. Seems like we should be able to do the same.”
― Tony Horwitz