Killer quotes

Medieval 1066 1485

Poetry
The Millers Tale - Chaucer
This parish clerk, this joly Absolon, Hath in his herte swich a love-longinge
o narrator (describing Absolons character)
For some folk wol ben wonnen for richesse, And som for strokes, and som for gentillesse.
o narrator (talking about the men Alisoun goes for, in order: John the carpenter, Nicholas and
Absolon)
Alisoun, his hony dere. He wepeth, weyleth, maketh sory chere.
o (the carpenter weeping for the safety of Alisoun)
My love-longing, for yet I shal nat misse, That at the leste wey I shal hire kisse.
o (Absolon uses love sickness as means of obtaining physical reward)
Under his tonge a trewe-love he beer
o Nicholas
I moorne as doth a lamb after the tete
o (Absolon talking about Alisoun)
I love another, and elles I were to blame, Wel bet than thee, by Jesu, Absolon!
o (Alisoun yelling to Absolon who continues to try to woo her)
Thanne kisse me, sin it may be no bet, For Jesus love and for the love of me.'
o (Nicholas wooing Alisoun)
For fro that tyme that he had kiste hir ers,
o Narrator

The Renaissance 1485 1658

Poetry
Sonnet 116 - Shakespeare
the marriage of true minds
love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! [Love] is an ever-fixed mark. That looks on tempests and is never shaken
Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks. Within his bending sickles compass come
If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Play
King Lear - Shakespeare
"Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes."
Speaker: King Lear
Mentioned or related: Cordelia
"Although the last, not least."
Speaker: King Lear
Mentioned or related: Cordelia
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is. To have a thankless child."
Speaker: King Lear
Mentioned or related: Goneril

"My old heart is cracked; it's cracked."

Speaker: Gloucester
Mentioned or related: Edgar
"Thou shalt find a dearer father in my love."
Speaker: Cornwall
Mentioned or related: Edmund
"You must bear with me. Pray you now, forget and forgive."
Speaker: King Lear
"No, no, no, no. Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds in the cage."
Speaker: King Lear
Mentioned or related: Cordelia

The Augustans and the Enlightenment 1658 - 1790

Prose
Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift
A wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be
young.
I must confess no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast
while I was placed on their toilet, directly before their naked bodies, which I am sure to me was very
far from being a tempting sight
The wives and daughters lament their confinement to the island
that the she Yahoo would admit the males while she was pregnant; and that the hes would quarrel
and fight with the females
o The Master Horse is grossed out by the fact that human women (a) keep having sex during
pregnancy (prude!), and (b) fight fiercely with human men.
For now I could no longer deny that I was a real Yahoo in every limb and feature, since the females
had a natural propensity to me, as one of their own species.
o Gulliver is swimming one day during his stay in Houyhnhnm Land when a very young Yahoo,
overcome with sexual desire, hurls herself at Gulliver.
In their marriages, they are exactly careful to choose such colours as will not make any disagreeable
mixture in the breed.
o The Houyhnhnms arrange marriages for their children to "preserve the race from
degenerating."
one half of our natives were good for nothing but bringing children into the world;
o But the reason the Lilliputians seem to educate girls is to make them suitable wives, so that they
can chat happily with their husbands "because she cannot always be young" (1.6.15) (ick). The
Houyhnhnms educate girls to make them better, wiser mothers.
My wife took me in her arms, and kissed me; at which, having not been used to the touch of that
odious animal for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour.
o (Why does Gulliver's wife put up with this crap?) So, when Gulliver gets back from Houyhnhnm
Land and his wife hugs him, he faints because he is so unused to being so close to such a
disgusting animal as a Yahoo.

The Romantics 1790 1914 (the Victorians 1837 1914)

Prose
Jane Eyre
you have no money; your father left you none Janes cousin to Jane

women feel just as men feel - Jane

I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester
while I breathe and think, I must love him Jane related to Mr Rochester
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons
I felt he had not given her his love
I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my homemy only home. Jane
to Mr Rochester
it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs Mr Rochester to Jane
He stood between me and every thought of religion
I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper.
Reader, I married him.

Poetry
Tennyson
All is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, In Memoriam
Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Locksley Hall
For man is man and master of his fate.
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, The Idylls of the King
O hard, when love and duty clash!
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, The Princess
The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind
Hath foul'd me.
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, The Idylls of the King
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, The Higher Pantheism
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink life to the lees.
o ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Ulysses
For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
o ALFRED TENNYSON, The Two Voices
All the windy ways of men
Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.
o ALFRED TENNYSON, The Vision of Sin
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.
o ALFRED TENNYSON, The Two Voices
Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
o ALFRED TENNYSON, In Memoriam

Play
The importance of being Earnest
Jack: I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.
Algernon: I thought you had come up for pleasure?...I call that business.
o Speakers: Algernon Moncrieff, Jack
o Mentioned or related: Gwendolen Fairfax

I really dont see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing
romantic about a definite proposal.
o Speaker: Algernon Moncrieff
Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to youmy ideal has always been to love some one of
the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence.
o Speaker: Gwendolen Fairfax
o Mentioned or related: Jack
Dr. Chausible: But is a man not equally attractive when married?
o Miss Prism: No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.
o Speakers: Dr. Chasuble, Miss Prism
I think it has been a great success. Im in love with Cecily, and that is everything.
o Speaker: Algernon Moncrieff
o Mentioned or related: Cecily Cardew
The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect
his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so
very attractive.
o Speaker: Gwendolen Fairfax
How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes!
o Speaker: Gwendolen Fairfax

A Dolls house
I would never dream of doing anything you didnt want me to.
o Speaker: Nora Helmer
o Mentioned or related: Torvald Helmer
You see Torvald is so terribly in love with me that he says he wants me all to himself. When we first
married, it even used to make him sort of jealous if I only as much as mentioned any of my old friends
back home. So of course I stopped doing it.
o Mentioned or related: Torvald Helmer
Tell me what to do, keep me rightas you always do.
o Mentioned or related: Torvald Helmer
But my dear darling Nora, you are dancing as though your life depended on it.
o Mentioned or related: Nora Helmer
A heartless woman throws a man over the moment something more profitable offers itself.
o Speaker: Nils Krogstad
o Mentioned or related: Kristine Linde
I wouldnt be a proper man if I didnt find a woman doubly attractive for being so obviously helpless.
I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Daddys doll child
o Mentioned or related: Torvald Helmer
I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as much as you are
o Mentioned or related: Torvald Helmer