Quotes from book

The Eyre Affair

“Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just… well,, that's all.”

“We all make mistakes at some time in our lives, some more than others. It is only when the cost is counted in human lives that people really take notice.”

“Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.”

“What is there to forgive?… Ignore forgive and concentrate on living. Life for you is short; far too short to allow small jealousies to infringe on the happiness which can be yours only for the briefest of times.”

“Ordinary adults don't like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.”

“Literary detection and firearms don't really go hand in hand; pen mighter than the sword and so forth.”

“Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.”

“I shouldn't believe anything I say, if I were you-and that includes what I just told you.”

“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.”

“If you expect me to believe that a lawyer wrote, I must be dafter than I look.”

“The cleanest souls are the easiest to soil.”

“Take no heed of her…. She reads a lot of books.”

“Cash is always the deciding factor in such matters of moral politics; nothing ever gets done unless motivated by commerce or greed.”

“Apart from the faint odor of ink that pervaded the scene, it might have been real.”

“Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.”