"He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break."
- Thomas Hardy
"I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all."
"It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession; with totally d..."
"He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan-a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society."
"When the love-led man had ceased from his labours Bathsheba came and looked him in the face.'Gabriel, will you you stay on with me?' she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips qu..."
"But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are."
"Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being."
"You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always"
"He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church-yes, he is!''I am afeard nobody ever saw him there. I never did, certainly.''The reason of that is,' she said..."
"This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock."