The Invisible Man Quotes

“All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Alone-- it is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, to hurt a little, and there is the end.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man, with eBook

“I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“The Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a great deal of talk and no decisive action.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“I never blame anyone," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp!”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“But-! I say! The common conventions of humanity-'
'Are all very well for common people.”
― Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), The Invisible Man

“To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, might suddenly become—this.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“...the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a cultivated man.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Everyone seemed eager to talk at once, and the result was Babel.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“I felt amazingly confident,—it’s not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an ass.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going to throw flints at you till you think differently.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the Coarch and Horses, more dead than alive as it seemed, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a ready acquiescence to terms and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Ambition—what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when her name must needs be Delilah?”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“The stranger swore briefly but vividly.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“In the middle of the night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with vast black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her terrors and turned over and went to sleep again.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here:head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“I thought I was killing myself and I did not care.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“In the night, he must have eaten and slept; for in the morning he was himself again, active, powerful, angry, and malignant, prepared for his last great struggle against the world.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“There’s some ex-traordinary things in books,” said the mariner.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone — it is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, to hurt a little, and there is the end.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“The man’s become inhuman, I tell you,” said Kemp. “I am as sure he will establish a reign of terror — so soon as he has got over the emotions of this escape — as I am sure I am talking to you. Our only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“He is mad,” said Kemp; “inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking…. He has wounded men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now — furious!”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to clap men on the back, fling people’s hats astray, and generally revel in my extraordinary advantage.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the room, ejaculating.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas,—he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working, I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“And there it was, on a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man