The Four Swans Quotes

“Tenderness is not like money: the more you give to one, the more you have for others.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“No man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't desire....But every man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't get.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Love is not a possession to hoard. You give it away. It's a blessing and a balm.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“There's no paradise in love! It's--you're thinking in the wrong way. Love--the sort you're asking me for--is of the earth, earthy. Beautiful, maybe--sometimes it be like a gold mine that one digs into. But of the earth--earthy. Tis all wrong to speak of paradise. Love may be the nearest human beings can get--but it is still outside the gates--for it is human--easily lost--animal in the way it work, though more, much more than animal. Oftentimes it--uplifts, transports...but--but it should not be mistaken. It is a--a terrible mistake to pretend it is something quite different.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Not for the first time he was conscious of emotional lights and shades in his wife that could not be categorized, could not be named as sensuous or emotional as such, perhaps derived from each and gave to each but in essence grew out of a deeper fund of temperament that he still could not altogether apprehend. The simple miner's daughter was not simple in character at all.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“He moved towards her, and knew the moment he touched her that something had won his battle for him. He took her face in his hands, held it like a cup to be drunk from, and then kissed her. With a serious unsmiling mouth he touched her eyelids, her cheeks, her hair, and sighed, as if for the moment her acceptance were all and there was no further desire in him.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Everyone," Ross said, "seems a little less concerned than I do. Am I more tender-hearted for others or only tender because of my own conscience?"
"We are not–untender," she said. "Not so. But maybe we are more–resigned. When a man is condemned to death we accept it, though it's sad to do so. We know we cannot change it. You hoped to change it–so it's more of a–a disappointment. You feel you have failed. We don't feel that because we never hoped to succeed.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Either you trust a man and give him authority to carry out his treatment or you do not. When it goes well you are happy that you did so. When it goes ill you think, if only . . .”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“I still like your looks...but Sam d'get into your bones. He's got into my bones, I tell ee and tis no pretty way to be!”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“And gentlefolk never laugh at simplicity; they only laugh at pretence.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Poverty can be endured if it is endured with pride.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Their love was not in question. What was in question was what they would make of it.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“His partner, Peter Hoskin, was waiting, and together they climbed down the series of inclining ladders to the forty fathom level, and stooped through narrow tunnels and echoing caves until they reached the level they were driving south-west in the direction of the old Wheal Maiden workings.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“direct, so bright and clear of eye and manner, that he found it hard to believe she was any man’s game. But even if she were, the Biblical analogy that had occurred to him in the mine that day still held good. But how to bring her to repentance? How make a person aware of sin when their unawareness was so complete?”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“Sawle-with-Grambler; but Sawle Church would hardly have been big enough, Truro was more central for most of the guests, and November with its heavy rains was not a time for country travel. It was a big wedding after all.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“[When men were ill, they] liked the importance, the confidence, the attack of a demi-god, whose voice was already echoing through the house as he mounted the stairs, who had the maids scurrying for water or blankets and the patient's relatives hanging on every word. Behenna was such a man. His very appearance made the heart beat faster even if, as often happened, it later stopped beating altogether. Failure did not depress him. If one of his patients died, it was not the fault of his remedies, it was the fault of the patient.”
― Winston Graham, The Four Swans

“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, The Four Swans