Suspense quotes

“

There are plenty of fearless people in the world, but luck is even better than courage.

The brig sailed away unscathed. Yes, luck is even better than courage. Surer than wisdom and stronger than justice. Luck is a great thing. It is the only thing worth having on one’s side. And you people have always had it.

“Nazione di mercante,” repeated the man slowly. “Well, that may be true too.

Different men, different wisdoms.

”

“They are not far wrong,” was the other’s ominous reply. “

Each man has a devil not very far from his elbow.

Don’t argue, signore, don’t call him up in me! You had better say no more and go in peace from here.”

“I should think not. Ghosts are of no account.

Could there be anything more futile than the ghost of a boat?

”

“You very stupid man, Mr. Bernard. Love! What sort of trash you talk?

Love don’t buy fish for dinner.

” Then with sudden anxiety she inquired: “Have you got money for marketing tomorrow?” Bernard had the money. Not much, but he had the money. “Then you go out early and buy fish for dinner. This Madame la Marquise orders.

“I don’t know what they have got to be so merry about,” the other began, with a slight glance at the naval table and leaning forward again towards Cosmo. “Their occupation is gone.

Heroes are a thoughtless lot.

Yet just look at that elderly lieutenant at the head of the table. Shabby coat. Old epaulette. He doesn’t laugh. He will die a lieutenant—on half pay. That’s how heroic people end when the heroic times are over.”

“

I have always been most careful not to give my conscience any license to trouble me,

” retorted the other with a certain curtness of tone which was not offensive; “and I have lived now for some considerable time.

“God knows. Let us call it Cantelucci’s gratitude. Generous stuff, this, to wash down those dishes with.

Gluttony is an odious vice, but an ambition to dine well is about the only one which can be indulged at no cost to one’s fellow men.

”

“

I have never known you,

” he said with a tone of the profoundest conviction.

“

There is nothing to compare with wealth,

” interrupted the other in a soldierly voice and paused, then continued in the same tone of making a verbal report: “When I was in England I had the privilege to know many people of position. They were very kind to me.

“You can’t know anything about it,” he affirmed, then added unexpectedly: “

Money will give you even ideas. Lots of ideas. The worst of it is that any one of them may turn out damnable.

Well, yes. There is of course danger in money, but what of that?”

“Those youthful friendships …” he made a convulsive grimace which Cosmo had discovered to be the effect of a smile. “There is something so charming in those youthful friendships.

As to myself I don’t remember ever being youthful.

” He stepped out towards the door through which Cosmo had seen Clelia enter that morning. “Let me find you when I return, enjoying yourselves most sentimentally. Most delightful.”

In his irresolution he gazed at her, thinking that she was lovely to an incredible degree and that the word “radiant” applied to her extraordinary aptness.

Light entered into her composition. And it was not the cold light of marble.

“She actually glows,” he said to himself, amazed, “like ripe fruit in the foliage, like a big flower in the shade.”

The long drapery of her train flowed to the ground in a dark blue shimmer. … “

He is inevitable. He has always been inevitable,

” came further from her lips which he couldn’t see, for the mirror above the mantelpiece reflected nothing but her forehead with the gold mist of her hair above.

brutalities, abuse, scenes of passion, mad exhibitions of jealousy, as long as they do not attack your conception of your moral personality. All this fell off me like a poisoned robe, leaving hardly a smart behind.

I raised my head like a flower after a thunderstorm.

Don’t think my character is shallow, Cosmo. There were depths in me that could be reached, but till then I had been only tormented, shocked, surprised, but hardly even frightened. It was he who had suffered. But my turn was to come.”

It was impossible to induce him to come to any sort of arrangement that would leave me in peace. All the world, influenced by his paid friends, was against me. What could I do?

Calumnies are hard to bear. Harder than truth.

Even my parents weakened. He promised to make amends. Of course I went back to him, as one would crawl out of the mud amongst clean thorns that can but tear one’s flesh.

… away from the evil passions and the hopeless stupidities of all the people that had come back without a single patriotic feeling, without a single new idea in their heads, like merciless spectres out of a grave, hating the world to which they had returned.

They had forgotten nothing and learned nothing.

”

A shadow seemed to fall on Count de Montevesso’s face for the moment. Clelia unclasped her fingers, shook her fists at the empty space, then clasped her legs again. These movements, full of sombre energy, were observed silently by the Count of Montevesso.

He uttered the word “Patienza,” which in its humility is the word of the ambitious, of the unforgiving who keep a strict account with the world; a word of indomitable hope.

“You wait till you are a little older. You will have plenty of people at your feet; and then you will be able to spurn anybody you like.”

Nothing. You would have to gulp it, feeling pretty small. A private gentleman of good position could resent such a remark from an equal, but a master of the world couldn’t.

A master of the world, Mr. Latham, is very small potatoes; and I will tell you why: it’s because he is alone of his kind, stuck up like a thief in the pillory, for dead cats and cabbage stalks to be thrown at him.

A devil of a position to be in unless for a moment. But no man born of woman is a monster. There never was such a thing. A man who would really be a monster would arouse nothing but loathing and hatred.

and I will tell you why: it’s because he is alone of his kind, stuck up like a thief in the pillory, for dead cats and cabbage stalks to be thrown at him. A devil of a position to be in unless for a moment.

But no man born of woman is a monster.

There never was such a thing. A man who would really be a monster would arouse nothing but loathing and hatred. But this man has been loved by an army, by a people. For years his soldiers died for him with joy. Now, didn’t they?”

This train of thought led him to the reflection that no man could leave his troubles behind … never … never. … “It’s no use trying,” he thought with despair. Why should he go to Livorno? What would be the good of going home?

Lengthening the distance would be like lengthening a chain.

What use would it be to get out of sight? … “If I were to be struck blind tomorrow it wouldn’t help me.”

He was not exactly frightened but he was excusably flustered.

One is not kidnapped like this without any preliminaries every day.

He was painfully aware of being in the way of his new captors. He was kicked in the ribs and his legs were trodden upon.

“

Because they are incomparable,

” said Cosmo after a short pause, in which Attilio seemed to ponder.

“I like that what you said,” Attilio was heard at last. “

Their stars may be lonely. Look how still they are. But men are more like ships that come suddenly upon each other without a warning.

And yet they, too, are guided by the stars. I can’t get over the wonder of our meeting tonight.”