McTeague Quotes

“It belonged to the changeless order of things---the man desiring the woman only for what she withholds; the woman worshipping the man for that which she yields up to him. With each concession gained the man′s desire cools; with every surrender made the woman′s adoration increases...”
― Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco

“It was curious to note the effect of the alcohol upon the dentist. It did not make him drunk, it made him vicious. So far from being stupefied, he became, after the fourth glass, active, alert, quick-witted, even talkative; a certain wickedness stirred in him then; he was intractable, mean; and when he had drunk a little more heavily than usual, he found a certain pleasure in annoying and exasperating Trina, even in abusing and hurting her.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“I’ll cut him in two—with the whip,” he shouted. “I will, I will, I say I will, for a fact. He wouldn’t fight, hey? I’ll give um all the fight he wants, nasty, mangy cur. If he won’t fight he won’t eat. I’m going to get the butcher’s bull pup and I’ll put um both in a bag and shake um up. I will, for a fact, and I guess Alec will fight. Come along, Mister Grannis,” and he took the old Englishman away.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“The ancient little dressmaker was at all times willing to talk of Old Grannis to anybody that would listen, quite unconscious of the gossip of the flat.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Quite an affair had arisen from this circumstance. Miss Baker and Old Grannis were both over sixty, and yet it was current talk amongst the lodgers of the flat that the two were in love with each other. Singularly enough, they were not even acquaintances; never a word had passed between them.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Well,” said one of the deputies, as he backed the horse into the shafts of the buggy in which the pursuers had driven over from the hill, “we’ve about as good as got him. It isn’t hard to follow a man who carries a birdcage with him wherever he goes.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Frenna did a big business all day long. The murder was the one subject of conversation. Little parties were made up in his saloon—parties of twos and threes—to go over and have a look at the outside of the junk shop. Heise was the most important man the length and breadth of Polk Street; almost invariably he accompanied these parties, telling again and again of the part he had played in the affair.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Or, again, she would draw the heap lovingly toward her and bury her face in it, delighted at the smell of it and the feel of the smooth, cool metal on her cheeks. She even put the smaller gold pieces in her mouth, and jingled them there. She loved her money with an intensity that she could hardly express. She would plunge her small fingers into the pile with little murmurs of affection, her long, narrow eyes half closed and shining, her breath coming in long sighs. “Ah, the dear money, the dear money,” she would whisper. “I love you so! All mine, every penny of it. No one shall ever, ever get you. How I’ve worked for you! How I’ve slaved and saved for you! And I’m going to get more; I’m going to get more, more, more; a little every day.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Oh, look out, Miss Baker. Those two dogs hate each other just like humans. You best look out. They’ll fight sure.” Miss Baker sought safety in a nearby vestibule, whence she peered forth at the scene, very interested and curious.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“It soon became apparent that Trina would be an extraordinarily good housekeeper. Economy was her strong point. A good deal of peasant blood still ran undiluted in her veins, and she had all the instinct of a hardy and penurious mountain race—the instinct which saves without any thought, without idea of consequence—saving for the sake of saving, hoarding without knowing why. Even McTeague did not know how closely Trina held to her new-found wealth.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“That’s what cousin Mark says. We are going to send the twins to the kindergarten next month.” “What’s the kindergarten?” “Oh, they teach them to make things out of straw and toothpicks—kind of a play place to keep them off the street.” “There’s one up on Sacramento Street, not far from Polk Street. I saw the sign.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“This was nobility. Their mutual affection and esteem suddenly increased enormously. It was Damon and Pythias; it was David and Jonathan; nothing could ever estrange them. Now it was for life or death.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Name is Maria—Miranda—Macapa." Then, after a pause, she added, as though she had but that moment thought of it, "Had a flying squirrel an’ let him go.”
― Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco

“When he was gone, Trina took the sixty cents she had stolen from him out of her pocket and recounted it.”
― Frank Norris, McTeague (Illustrated): A Story of San Francisco

“She should have gone to some other dentist; the young fellow on the corner, for instance, the poser, the rider of bicycles, the courser of greyhounds. McTeague began to loathe and to envy this fellow. He spied upon him going in and out of his office, and noted his salmon-pink neckties and his astonishing waistcoats.”
― Frank Norris, McTeague

“Her avarice had grown to be her one dominant passion; her love of money for the money’s sake brooded in her heart, driving out by degrees every other natural affection.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“The room had been picked and stripped till only the bare walls and floor remained. Here where they had been married, where the wedding supper had taken place, where Trina had bade farewell to her father and mother, here where she had spent those first few hard months of her married life, where afterward she had grown to be happy and contented, where she had passed the long hours of the afternoon at her work of whittling, and where she and her husband had spent so many evenings looking out of the window before the lamp was lit—here in what had been her home, nothing was left but echoes and the emptiness of complete desolation. Only one thing remained. On the wall between the windows, in its oval glass frame, preserved by some unknown and fearful process, a melancholy relic of a vanished happiness, unsold, neglected, and forgotten, a thing that nobody wanted, hung Trina’s wedding bouquet.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“I’ve not, I’ve not,” declared Trina, “and you know I’ve not. I wish mamma hadn’t asked me for any money. Why can’t she be a little more economical? I manage all right. No, no, I can’t possibly afford to send her fifty.” “Oh, pshaw! What will you do, then?” grumbled her husband. “I’ll send her twenty-five this month, and tell her I’ll send the rest as soon as I can afford it.” “Trina, you’re a regular little miser,” said McTeague. “I don’t care,” answered Trina, beginning to laugh. “I guess I am, but I can’t help it, and it’s a good fault.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“No, not the gold piece,” she said to herself. “It’s too pretty. He can have the silver.” She made the change and counted out ten silver dollars into her palm. But what a difference it made in the appearance and weight of the little chamois bag! The bag was shrunken and withered, long wrinkles appeared running downward from the draw-string. It was a lamentable sight. Trina looked longingly at the ten broad pieces in her hand. Then suddenly all her intuitive desire of saving, her instinct of hoarding, her love of money for the money’s sake, rose strong within her.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Never, never, never should a penny of that miraculous fortune be spent; rather should it be added to. It was a nest egg, a monstrous, roc-like nest egg, not so large, however, but that it could be made larger. Already by the end of that winter Trina had begun to make up the deficit of two hundred dollars that she had been forced to expend on the preparations for her marriage.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“At last that great supper was over, everything had been eaten; the enormous roast goose had dwindled to a very skeleton. Mr. Sieppe had reduced the calf’s head to a mere skull; a row of empty champagne bottles—“dead soldiers,” as the facetious waiter had called them—lined the mantelpiece. Nothing of the stewed prunes remained but the juice, which was given to Owgooste and the twins. The platters were as clean as if they had been washed; crumbs of bread, potato parings, nutshells, and bits of cake littered the table; coffee and ice-cream stains and spots of congealed gravy marked the position of each plate. It was a devastation, a pillage; the table presented the appearance of an abandoned battlefield”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“But the couple faced the room, Trina throwing back her veil. She—perhaps McTeague as well—felt that there was a certain inadequateness about the ceremony. Was that all there was to it? Did just those few muttered phrases make them man and wife? It had been over in a few moments, but it had bound them for life. Had not something been left out? Was not the whole affair cursory, superficial? It was disappointing.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Look at your facts, look at your figures. I am a free American citizen, ain’t I? I pay my taxes to support a good government, don’t I? It’s a contract between me and the government, ain’t it? Well, then, by damn! if the authorities do not or will not afford me protection for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then my obligations are at an end; I withhold my taxes. I do—I do—I say I do. What?” He glared about him, seeking opposition.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“for that matter, were any of the people of the little world of Polk Street. The shop girls, the plumbers’ apprentices, the small tradespeople, and their like, whose social position was not clearly defined, could never be sure how far they could go and yet preserve their “respectability.” When they wished to be “proper,” they invariably overdid the thing. It was not as if they belonged to the “tough” element, who had no appearances to keep up. Polk Street rubbed elbows with the “avenue” one block above. There were certain limits which its dwellers could not overstep; but unfortunately for them, these limits were poorly defined. They could never be sure of themselves. At an unguarded moment they might be taken for “toughs,” so they generally erred in the other direction, and were absurdly formal. No people have a keener eye for the amenities than those whose social position is not assured.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“Neither of them had asked that this thing should be—that their destinies, their very souls, should be the sport of chance. If they could have known, they would have shunned the fearful risk. But they were allowed no voice in the matter. Why should it all be?”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“This poor crude dentist of Polk Street, stupid, ignorant, vulgar, with his sham education and plebeian tastes, whose only relaxations were to eat, to drink steam beer, and to play upon his concertina, was living through his first romance, his first idyll.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“On the other hand, she was perfectly at her ease; doubtless the woman in her was not yet awakened; she was yet, as one might say, without sex. She was almost like a boy, frank, candid, unreserved.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“It was his ambition, his dream, to have projecting from that corner window a huge gilded tooth, a molar with enormous prongs, something gorgeous and attractive. He would have it someday, on that he was resolved; but as yet such a thing was far beyond his means.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“McTeague’s mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act, sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague

“He had learnt it after a fashion, mostly by watching the charlatan operate. He had read many of the necessary books, but he was too hopelessly stupid to get much benefit from them.”
― Frank Norris, Mcteague