The Mystery of Edwin Drood quotes

“You know now, don’t you, that even a poor monotonous chorister and grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall we call it?”

— Spoken by a character · II. A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO

I loved you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.

— Spoken by a character · XIX. SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL

“How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose. I don’t ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give me yourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn; it will be enough for me.”

— Spoken by a character · XIX. SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL

Not only is the day waning, but the year.

Your life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted out for you, like a surveyor’s plan.

— Spoken by a character · II. A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO

I say she is sacrificed in being bestowed upon him. I say that I love her, and despise and hate him!

— Spoken by a character · X. SMOOTHING THE WAY

I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some one doted on her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in and won her.

— Spoken by a character · XI. A PICTURE AND A RING

Eddy, let us be courageous. Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth.

— Spoken by a character · XIII. BOTH AT THEIR BEST

From that time, with occasional wild charges, like a wounded monster dying, it drops and sinks; and at full daylight it is dead.

“Am I so wicked in my thoughts as to conceive a wickedness that others cannot imagine?”

— Spoken by a character · XX. A FLIGHT