Winston Graham Quotes

And what of this young woman beside him, whom he had loved devotedly for four years and still did love? She had given him more than Elizabeth ever could: months of unflawed relationship, unquestioning trust (which he was now betraying in thought) . Oh nonsense! What man did not at some time or another glance elsewhere? And who could complain if it remained at a glance? (Chance was a fine thing).

~ Winston Graham

I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in men’s minds, perhaps from a lack of a willingness to feel themselves utterly alone. But now and then I feel that there is something beyond the material world, somethings we all feel intimations of but cannot explain. Underneath the religious vision there is the harsh fundamental reality of all our lives, because we know we must live and die as the animals we are. But sometimes I suspect that under that harsh reality there is a further vision, still deeper based, that comes nearer to true reality than the reality we know.

~ Winston Graham

But fear and fascination are yokefellows, oxen out of step but pulling in the same direction...

~ Winston Graham

Ill usage makes the sweetest of us vicious.

~ Winston Graham

It isn't where you're born in this world, it's what you do.

~ Winston Graham

Everything at the moment, my dear, no doubt seems disgusting. I know the mood too well. But being in that mood, Ross, is like being out in the frost. If we do not keep on the move we shall perish.

~ Winston Graham

Demelza was beginning to feel like a lion tamer who has been putting his pets through their paces and finds them getting out of hand.

~ Winston Graham

Monthly, out of common courtesy, he went to inquire after the invalid Charles, who refused either to die or get better.

~ Winston Graham

I could say how well he dances, but that isn't true, for he dances like that big friendly bear I saw last Christmas.

~ Winston Graham

...Here, beast, you shall be the chairman, and mind you call us to order. He leaned forward and dropped the cat on the empty seat.

~ Winston Graham

If every one of you was to clean before his own front door, all would be clean of cow flops.

~ Winston Graham

That reminds me of when you used to call and see us before Christmas, the year before last. Somehow–somehow life was all dark and secret and beautiful then.

~ Winston Graham

Of course he'll bring no money. Nor never will. He's not the type to--accumulate. But it's a good name to have. And he's becoming a personality in the county. One never knows quite why this happens, eh? Not so much what a man does. More a matter of character.

~ Winston Graham

I suspect that for a good deal of the time you live in a sort of glass case, not knowing real enthusiasm or genuine emotion; or feeling them perhaps at second hand, feeling them sometimes because you think you ought to, not because you really do.

~ Winston Graham

God, thought Ross, it does work, and unfairly; but I want her, not any other, not the most beautiful eighteen-year-old damsel born out of a sea-shell, not the most seductive houri of any sultan's harem; I want her with her familiar gestures and her shining smile and her scarred knees, and I know she wants me in just the same way, and if there's any happiness more complete than this I don't know it and am not sure I even want it.

~ Winston Graham

In the depths of horror and despair, one comes to a new steadiness. There is no farther to fall.

~ Winston Graham

All men were born in the same way: no privilege existed that was not of man's own contriving.

~ Winston Graham

I've interrupted a party. Is it in celebration of the peace or in honor of the next war?

~ Winston Graham

I believe yours is the only wisdom, Demelza.

~ Winston Graham

Did I behave myself tonight, Ross?’ she asked. ‘Did I behave as Mrs Poldark should behave?’‘You misbehaved monstrously,’ he said, ‘and were a triumph.

~ Winston Graham

The most frightening blazing anger was alive in her now. It was not only Elizabeth that she could have killed but Ross. She could have thrown every piece of crockery at him, and knives and forks too. Indeed she could have attacked him knife in hand. Fundamentally there was nothing meek or mild about her. She was a fighter, and it showed now.

~ Winston Graham

Do you believe we are masters of ourselves, or merely dance like puppets on strings having the illusion of independence?

~ Winston Graham

Yet, although he could not quite work this out in simple terms in his own mind, the very savour of life, he thought, was itself enhanced if it were not totally taken for granted. Perhaps it was something to do with the whole philosophy of the world into which we were born. If we lived for ever, who would look forward eagerly to tomorrow? If there were no darkness, should we appreciate the sun? Warmth after cold, food after hunger, drink after thirst, sexual love after the absence of sexual love, the fatherly greeting after being away, the comfort and dryness of home after a ride in the rain, the warmth and peace and security of one’s fireside after being among enemies. Unless there was contrast there might be satiety.

~ Winston Graham

He wondered if the real world was that one in which men fought for policies and principles and died or lived gloriously - or more often miserably - for the sake of an abstract word like patriotism or independence, or if reality belonged to the humble people and the common land.

~ Winston Graham

Yes, it was a beautiful sermon, tugging the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there perhaps two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, this was a special occasion...But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away?

~ Winston Graham

It isn't very pretty to have been made a fool of by one's own feelings,' he said. 'To take childish promises and build a--a castle out of them...

~ Winston Graham

But was any future, anyone's future, unfraught by hazards of some sort? The only security was death. So long as one wanted to go on living on had to accept the risks. Well, she accepted them...

~ Winston Graham

Men's tongues in some things outrun women's.

~ Winston Graham