Dragonwyck Quotes

“Her lips were drawn to his like a moth to a flame.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“He was all sin and mystery, and Miranda feared the pleasures he offered as she feared the fires of hell. Yet when she succumbed at last, it was not because her body was weak but because her mind was curious.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“I guess every disaster, every tragedy in the world, my lad, is caused by someone’s selfishness and refusal to recognize the rights of others.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Miranda looked up at him through a haze of desire, her will consumed by a fierce crackling heat, just like the dry twigs of the old woman's fire.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Yes," Nicholas replied, in a bored voice. "The name is Dutch. Dragonwyck, meaning place of the dragon. It derives from an Indian legend about a flying serpent whose eyes were fire and whose flaming breath withered the corn."

"Heavens!" With a light laugh, Miranda asked her new employer if the red men had sent forth a champion to do battle with the dragon.

The patroon's face was dark, unsmiling. "To appease him the wise men of the tribe sacrificed a pure maiden on the rocky bluff you see above you."

Miranda's laughter died. Something in Nicholas Van Ryn's cruel, handsome features made her imagine herself in the Indian maiden's place.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“He wasn't strong. He was weak. The weakest thing in the world. A man who lives only for himself”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Her body consented willingly to all that her soul found most abhorrent. As Nicholas had promised, there was a hellish delight in knowing she was damned.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Suddenly, in unconscious response to the steadiness of Nicholas' gaze, she raised her eyelids and looked full at him. A shock ran through her. Her heart beat in slow thick strokes. They looked across the room into each other's eyes for half a second only, then Nicholas', turning to the Countess, said smoothly: 'Ah, that is the most interesting, madame. Tell me more about your little blaise.' But Miranda knew that for all the triviality of the incident something cataclysmic had occurred. Their relationship had changed and from this point there could be no going back.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“She had not, as yet, enough introspection to realize that part of his fascination for her had arisen from his unpredictability, and her conception of him as a mysterious being from a superior world who had miraculously condescended to desire her. Nor did she realize how tightly she was enmeshed by his physical attraction, a bondage woven not only from the magnetism of his body but from the very fear and pain he caused her”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“in that hushed hour between midnight and dawn when Morpheus’ sable hands touch the rosy finger tips of Aurora and even the fairies are slumbering on their flowery couches,”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Miranda was shocked to hear Nicholas speak of slavery in glowing terms, as an efficient agricultural system. This wasn't the South! Yet as she surveyed her employer's strong dark profile in secret from beneath her long lashes, she was forced to conclude that the role of master suited Nicholas Van Ryn perfectly. Even when she closed her eyes, the impression of cruelty and power remained. But it was herself she saw as the darky slave, stripped of her free will and trembling at her master's approach.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“A Tropic flower cannot live without sun. A soul cannot live without love.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Even the Bible admitted that the world was full of mystery and beauty and golden perfumed luxury.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“She compromised by stuffing all the shining mass loosely into a pink chenille net. The net matched her foaming mousseline gown, also the color of a pink seashell. Like all fashionably dressed women with unlimited means, Miranda had a special gown for every imaginable function. A walking costume could hardly be worn for midday dinner, still less for tea. A morning négligée, no matter how elaborately be-flounced and beribboned, might never appear after noon even in the privacy of the bedroom. This shell-pink gown had been contrived by the knowing modiste for one purpose only- the gratification of a husband's eye at just such an intimate supper party as Miranda was planning. Its graceful skirt belled but slightly over a petticoat stiffened with horsehair, the tight bodice was cut very low into a heart shape to show the swell of the white breasts. The only trimming were tiny rose velvet bows sewn at random with a careless gaiety as though a swarm of rosy bees had settled on a pink cloud.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“I admire the man's genius, I sense in his writings a strong kinship with my own mind; they have a macabre quality, a voluptuous flavor of mystery and evil which attracts me strongly.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“His home was a part of him, an externalized expression of his will, for upon his inherited Dutch Manor house he had superimposed the Gothic magnificence which he desired. He had been attracted by the formulations of Andrew Downing, the young landscape architect who lived on the river at Newburgh and whose directions for building "romantic and picturesque villas" were changing the countryside; but it was not in Nicholas to accept another's ideas, and when five years ago he had remodeled the old Van Ryn homestead, he had used Downing simply as a guide. To the original ten rooms he had added twenty more, the gables and turrets, and the one high tower. The result, though reminiscent of a German Schloss on the Rhine, crossed with Tudor English and interwoven with pure fantasy, was nevertheless Hudson River American and not unsuited to its setting.
The Dragonwyck gardens were as much as an expression of Nicholas' personality as was the mansion, for here, he had subdued Nature to a stylized ornateness. Between the untouched grove of hemlocks to the south and the slope of a rocky hill half a mile to the north he had created along the river an artificial and exotic beauty.
To Miranda it was overpowering, and she felt dazed as they mounted marble steps from the landing. She was but vaguely conscious of the rose gardens and their pervasive scent, of small Greek temples set beneath weeping willows, of rock pavilions, violet-bordered fountains, and waterfalls.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Miranda was curled up against the wall, her pink calico skirts bunched carelessly above her knees in uncharacteristic abandon. A green measuring worm inched himself unchecked across the smooth bodice of her dress. The May breeze, fragrant with apple-blossoms and clover from the adjacent pasture, blew her loosened hair into her eyes. She pushed the strand back impatiently with one hand while the other clutched her book, as Miranda devoured the fascinating pages of The Beautiful Adulteress.
So compelling were the beautiful adulteress's adventures, that even when Miranda's sunbonnet slipped off and hot sunshine fell through the elm trees onto her skin, she did not pause to replace the bonnet. And yet the transparent whiteness of that skin was the envy of her friends and part product of many a tedious treatment with buttermilk and cucumber poultices.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“How can he be so cruel to me at times—and then like this? she thought. And again her awakening perceptions gave her the answer. He would hurt her himself, take pleasure in doing so, but he would not allow her to be injured by anyone or anything else”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“all cruelty and passion must burn away at last to leave behind them only pity.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“You’ve read some of my stuff?” he asked eagerly, adding with bitterness, “ ‘The Raven,’ I suppose. Such fame as I have appears to rest entirely on the plumage of that gloomy bird.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Look, bimba—In my country we have a—how you say?—a proverb. Amare, cantare, mangiare.—Loving, singing, eating—these are God’s three gifts. You don’ need more.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“God's will usually seemed to coincide with her father's, and against this partnership there was no hope of appeal.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Miranda felt foolish, and glancing apologetically at Nicholas she saw that though he had taken no part in the enthusiasm of the passengers, he yet wore an expression of exhilaration and triumph. An expression which vanished at once as his face returned to its usual reserve. She had a moment of puzzled uneasiness, for though she did not in the least understand him, she knew that his reaction to the race was not like that of the other passengers; she felt that the contest had had for him an inner meaning, and that in some way its outcome represented the”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Never be worth a damn till you do meet trouble and lick it.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“In after years Miranda knew that her first sight of Dragonwyck was the most vivid and significant impression of her life. She stared at the fantastic silhouette which loomed dark against the eastern sky, the spires and gables and chimneys dominated in the center by one high tower; and it was as though the good and evil, the happiness and tragedy, which she was to experience under that roof materialized into physical force and struck across the quiet river into her soul.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“They drove up Third Avenue so that they might see the famous Stuyvesant pear tree on the corner of Thirteenth Street. Again for the two hundredth time its ancient boughs were loaded with blossoms. How strange it was that it could go on renewing itself in exquisite youth, when the hands that had planted it had so long ago fallen to dust!”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“The orchard where they stood was on higher ground than the farmhouse, which nestled like a white dove beneath hemlocks and the tall protecting elms. The fields, checkered by stone walls, undulated gently toward the sapphire strip of the distant Sound. A late October haze, faintly lavender, filtered the clear air, and intensified the perfume of burning leaves. Maples on the Cat Rock Hills blazed red and gold, colors repeated even more strongly by a riot of sumach and goldenrod against the gray wall of the little burying ground. Buttercup's bell tinkled rhythmically, as Seth guided her toward the barn and the evening milking.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“Lake Como," she said the little name to herself lingeringly. He had described a marble palace amongst cypress trees, had made her feel that she was there with him listening to the lap of the water, the singing of a nightingale, the love serenade of a boatman on the lake. "Piangi, piangi fanciulla," he had sung for them the first line. She hadn't known that he could sing.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“It was Nicholas' pride to have one example of every tree which could be grown in that locality, and many of these he had imported by schooner from Europe and the Orient straight to the Dragonwyck dock- the Incense Cedar, the Weeping Cypress, the Judas Tree, the Gingko with its fan-shaped leaves, and the delicate bronze Japanese Maple- these were hardly enough to live outside; but the palms and aloes, the oleanders and the orchids, grew in the elaborate greenhouses or in the conservatory off the dinging-room.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck

“This is something new from England, an opera called the 'Bohemian Girl.' I'll play the air through once and then you sing it. Oh, yes, you can; it's very easy."
So Miranda stood beside him and sang, "I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls." And when her first self-consciousness wore off she thrilled to the singular appropriateness of the words. Had he guessed her dreams and was that why he had picked this music? But the song was about love as well, and her voice wavered as she thought, Love there can never be for me in these marble halls- this is then not my dream, how could it be?”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck