Quotes from book
Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence, originally published by B.W. Huebsch Publishers. While the novel initially received a lukewarm critical reception, along with allegations of obscenity, it is today regarded as a masterpiece by many critics and is often regarded as Lawrence's finest achievement.

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“He always ran away from the battle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused himself, saying, "If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have happened.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“Recklessness is almost a man's revenge on his woman. He feels he is not valued so he will risk destroying himself to deprive her altogether.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“You're always begging things to love you," he said, "as if you were a beggar for love. Even the flowers, you have to fawn on them--”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“She had borne so long this cruelty of belonging to him and not being claimed by him.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

D.H. Lawrence photo

“To be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which is our effort⎯⎯⎯to live effortless, a kind of curious sleep⎯⎯⎯that is very beautiful, I think; that is our after-life⎯⎯⎯our immortality.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers (1913), Ch.11

D.H. Lawrence photo

“He talked to her endlessly about his love of horizontals: how they, the great levels of sky and land in Lincolnshire, meant to him the eternality of the will, just as the bowed Norman arches of the church, repeating themselves, meant the dogged leaping forward of the persistent human soul, on and on, nobody knows where; in contradiction to the perpendicular lines and to the Gothic arch, which, he said, leapt up at heaven and touched the ecstasy and lost itself in the divine.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers (1913)

D.H. Lawrence photo

“I suppose that's what we do in death⎯⎯⎯sleep in wonder.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers (1913), Ch.11

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