Hang the family name!

     "You have been so anxious to buy me out that I wonder if you have not some other reason. Bankers so seldom tell the real truth.

    "At any rate, whatever your reason is, this letter is to tell you that you are wasting your time in making me offers. 'Hitchings Plantation' is going to remain open as long as I have anything to do with it. There is no reason why I should have any sympathy for your delicacy about the family name. As a matter of fact, I feel that my particular way of earning my living is about as honorable as yours, even if it doesn't pay so well."

(from Think Fast, Mr. Moto, by John P. Marquand)

He'll stop at nothing

     This was the Secret, and it was mine! A word from me; and house, lands, baronetcy, were gone from him forever - a word from me, and he was driven out into the world a nameless, penniless, friendless outcast! The man's whole future hung on my lips - and he knew it, by this time, as certainly as I did!

    That last thought steadied me. Interests far more precious than my own depended on the caution which must now guide my slightest actions. There was no possible treachery which Sir Percival might not attempt against me. In the danger and desperation of his position, he would be staggered by no risks, he would recoil at no crime - he would, literally, hesitate at nothing to save himself.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Of English juries

When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact, on the surface, and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Of indignation and door banging

 I felt, of course, at the time, that this temporizing on my part would probably end in bringing Marian here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors. But, then, the other course of proceeding might end up bringing Sir Percival here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors also; and, of the two indignations and bangings, I preferred Marian's - because I was used to her.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Why women sometimes beat men

 I felt certain of not losing my presence of mind. Any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Not exactly a prize winner

 I knocked, and the door was opened by the same heavy, over-grown housemaid, whose lumpish insensibility had tried my patience so severely on the day when I found the wounded dog. I had, since that time, discovered that her name was Margaret Porcher, and that she was the most awkward, slatternly, and obstinate servant in the house.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Sad confession of a wife

 "It is very hard for a woman to confess that the man to whom she has given her whole life is the man of all others who cares least for the gift. If you were married yourself, Marian - and especially if you were happily married - you would feel for me as no single woman can feel, however kind and true she may be."

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

It's all in how you say it

 Women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money; but they cannot resist a man's tongue, when he knows how to talk to them.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

All women do it

 I had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two; but the sound of Laura's name, on the lips of a stranger, stopped me instantly. I dare say it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen - but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections and the interests which grow out of them, point the other?

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

So much for good judges

 The housekeeper told me that the architecture of "the old wing," both outside and inside, was considered remarkably fine by good judges. On further investigation, I discovered that good judges could only exercise their abilities on Sir Percival's piece of antiquity by previously dismissing from their minds all fear of damp, darkness, and rats.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Friend, or not?

 Laura has preserved, far more perfectly than most people do in later life, the child's subtle faculty of knowing a friend by instinct; and, if I am right in assuming that her first impression of Count Fosco has not been favourable, I, for one, am in some danger of doubting and distrusting that illustrious foreigner before I have so much as set eyes on him.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Speak for me

 "You write to him, and he writes to you," she said. "While I am alive, if he asks after me, always tell him I am well, and never say I am unhappy. Don't distress him, Marian - for my sake, don't distress him. If I die first, promise you will give him this little book of his drawings, with my hair in it. There can be no harm, when I am gone, in telling him that I put it there with my own hands. And say - oh, Marian, say for me, then, what I can never say for myself - say I loved him!"

(from The Woman In White, by Willam Wilkie Collins)

Like men's tears

     "Don't be anry with me, Marian," she said, mistaking my silence.

    "I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought - they come, almost like men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten every one about me.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Beware the jolly ones

There are many varieties of sharp practitioners in this world, but, I think, the hardest of all to deal with are the men who overreach you under the guise of inveterate good humour. A fat, well-fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain the most hopeless to deal with.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Don't do it!

 No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Get engaged in haste . . .

 Miss Fairlie joined us in the afternoon, looking pale and depressed, and altogether unlike herself. I had some talk with her, and ventured on a delicate allusion to Sir Percival. She listened, and said nothing. All other subjects she pursued willingly; but this subject she allowed to drop. I began to doubt whether she might not be repenting of the engagement - just as young ladies often do, when repentance comes too late. 

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

What young men cannot do

 I had been favoroubly impressed by Mr. Hartright, on our first introduction to one another; but I soon discovered that he was not free from the social failings incidental to his age. There are three things that none of the young men of the prsent generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at whist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Quite the gent

 His manners were pleasantly marked by the formal grace and refinement of the old school of politeness, quickened by the invigorating sharpness and readiness of a man whose business in life obliges him always to keep his faculties in good working order.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)

When words fail

 The poor weak words which have failed to describe Miss Fairlie have succeeded in betraying the sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all. Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

(from The Woman in White, by William Wilkie Collins)

Mrs. Lack of Excitement

Mrs. Vesey looked the personification of human composure and female amiability. A calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in drowsy smiles on her plump, placid face. Some of us rush through life; and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life.

(from The Woman In White, by William Wilkie Collins)