Misalliance quotes

It puts me in a false position. Have you ever considered the fact that

I was an afterthought?

An afterthought? What do you mean by that?

It opens before he reaches it; and Lord Summerhays comes in. Johnny glares at him, speechless. Lord Summerhays takes in the situation, and quickly takes the punch bowl from the sideboard and offers it to Johnny.

Smash it. Don’t hesitate: it’s an ugly thing. Smash it: hard.

Johnny, with a stifled yell, dashes it in pieces, and then sits down and mops his brow. Feel better now? Johnny nods. I know only one person alive who could drive me to the point of having either to break china or commit murder;

I talked like a duchess; and if Johnny or Hypatia let slip a word that was like old times, I was down on them like anything. And now I’m beginning to do it myself at every turn.

There comes a time when all that seems to matter so little. Even queens drop the mask when they reach our time of life.

Let you alone for giving a thing a pretty turn! You’re a humbug, you know, Lord Summerhays. John doesn’t know it; and Johnny doesn’t know it; but you and I know it, don’t we? Now that’s something that even you can’t answer;

but then they generally ask you again; and you may as well say no first as last. You needn’t be afraid of the aristocracy, dear: they’re only human creatures like ourselves after all; and you’ll hold your own with them easy enough.

Oh, I’m not a bit afraid of them, I assure you.

Well, no, not afraid of them, exactly; but you’ve got to pick up their ways.

Still, you know, the superman may come. The superman’s an idea. I believe in ideas. Read Whatshisname.

Reading is a dangerous amusement, Tarleton.

I wish I could persuade your free library people of that.

On the contrary, it’s the end of it.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you’ve taught him everything else first?

Intercepting his father’s reply by coming out of the swing and taking the floor. Leave it at that. That’s good sense. Anybody on for a game of tennis?

When a woman has nothing to do, money and respectability mean that nothing is ever allowed to happen to her. I don’t want to be good; and I don’t want to be bad: I just don’t want to be bothered about either good or bad:

I want to be an active verb.

An active verb? Oh, I see. An active verb signifies to be, to do, or to suffer.

Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray?

Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg.

You never ask for anything?

Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers.

I like to know what I’m considered worth.

Offering the book to him. It’s in Polish.

But the consequences may be serious.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I’m my father’s daughter.

I’m the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses.

Not at all.

Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave.

If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar’s wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear:

Another talker!

Men like conventions because men made them. I didn’t make them: I don’t like them: I won’t keep them.

Now, what will you do?

A modest sort of demand, isn’t it? Nobody ever had it since the world began, fortunately for themselves; but you must have it, must you?

Well, you’ve come to the wrong shop for it: you’ll get no justice here: we don’t keep it. Human nature is what we stock.

Human nature! Debauchery! gluttony! selfishness! robbery of the poor! Is that what you call human nature?

and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all the figures are counted up and the balance sheet made out, the boss isn’t a penny the richer than he’d be if bookkeeping had never been invented.

Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the very worst.

Why not join the territorials?

You let well alone, Chickabiddy.

Most of our characters will bear a little careful dusting; but they won’t bear scouring.

Patsy is jolly well out of it. What does it matter, anyhow?

Oh yes they will.

The truth makes everybody believe it.

It also makes everybody pretend not to believe it. Mrs. Tarleton: you’re not playing the game.

No.

Justice was not my business. I had to govern a province; and I took the necessary steps to maintain order in it.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both. I used both when law and persuasion failed me.

How could I tell you?

Parents and children, Tarleton.

Oh, the gulf that lies between them! the impassable, eternal gulf! And so I’m to buy the brute for you, eh?

I don’t say you have, dear.

If only I could persuade you I’ve grown up, we should get along perfectly.

Do you remember Bill Burt?

He will give me a home, a position. He tells me I must know that my present position is not one for a nice woman. This to me, Lina Szczepanowska! I am an honest woman: I earn my living.

I am a free woman: I live in my own house.

I am a woman of the world: I have thousands of friends: every night crowds of people applaud me, delight in me, buy my picture, pay hard-earned money to see me. I am strong: I am skilful: I am brave: I am independent: