Classic Short Stories Quotes

“as Pushkin says: “‘Dearer to us the falsehood that exalts Than hosts of baser truths.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“You were right, old hoss; you were right,” the man mumbled to the old-timer of Sulfur Creek.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“hour or two before, standing face to face with death, he had experienced a sensation similar to that which drowning men are said to feel—a kind of clarifying of the moral faculty, in which the veil of the flesh, with its obscuring passions and prejudices, is pushed aside for a moment, and all the acts of one’s life stand out, in the clear light of truth, in their correct proportions and relations—a state of mind in which one sees himself as God may be supposed to see him.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Pavel Konstantinovitch,” he said in an imploring voice, “don’t be calm and contented, don’t let yourself be put to sleep! While you are young, strong, confident, be not weary in well-doing! There is no happiness, and there ought not to be; but if there is a meaning and an object in life, that meaning and object is not our happiness, but something greater and more rational. Do good!”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes...”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Dan an’ his father they didn’t hitch,—but he never held up his head ag’in after Dan had dared him an’ gone off.” The guest did not notice this hint of family sorrows in his eager interest in something else.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my brows with an air of cold and concentrated determination, thrust it into my pocket, as though doing such deeds was nothing out of the way for me, and not the first time. My”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“He, most likely, attached no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious falsity in which his whole nature was steeped...”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“the little maid threw two flowers growing on the same stem—an allegory of which I could make nothing, until it broke upon me that she meant to convey to me that he and she were brother and sister,”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“eke out a poor income of about thirty pounds a year by making water-colour drawings of flowers and fruit (they are the cheapest models in Venice),”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“and after torrents of tears, she could pray, and then—think again her dream of happiness was ended for ever, and wish for death. The next morning, she opened her unwilling eyes to the light, and rose. It was day; and all must rise to live through the day, and she among the rest, though the sun shone not for her as before, and misery converted life into torture.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth, gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge. And as he kissed her his heart strained again in his breast. He never intended to love her. But now it was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shrivelled and become void. After the kiss, her eyes again slowly filled with tears. She sat still, away from him, with her face drooped aside, and her hands folded in her lap. The tears fell very slowly. There was complete silence. He too sat there motionless and silent on the hearthrug. The strange pain of his heart that was broken seemed to consume him. That he should love her? That this was love!”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“With an inward groan he gave way, and let his heart yield towards her. A sudden gentle smile came on his face. And her eyes, which never left his face, slowly, slowly filled with tears. He watched the strange water rise in her eyes, like some slow fountain coming up. And his heart seemed to burn and melt away in his breast.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Joe watched with glazed hopeless eyes. The horses were almost like his own body to him. He felt he was done for now. Luckily he was engaged to a woman as old as himself, and therefore her father, who was steward of a neighbouring estate, would provide him with a job. He would marry and go into harness. His life was over; he would be a subject animal now.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Do you rememberin’ Assumption, Calixta?” he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now well, now her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts. They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world. The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached. When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery. He stayed cushioned upon her, breathless, dazed, enervated, with his heart beating like a hammer upon her. With one hand she clasped his head, her lips lightly touching his forehead. The other hand stroked with a soothing rhythm his muscular shoulders. The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they dared not yield.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“In the same singing divinity student’s voice in which he had talked to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness. “I’ve written about you in every letter to my mother,” he said. “If everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, friendly people with no nonsense about you.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same. And not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he had made their acquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was anything you like, but not love.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Had there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? And there was nothing for him but to talk vaguely of love, of woman, and no one guessed what it meant; only his wife twitched her black eyebrows, and said: “The part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all, Dimitri.” One evening, coming out of the doctors’ club with an official with whom he had been playing cards, he could not resist saying: “If only you knew what a fascinating woman I made the acquaintance of in Yalta!”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“If the world were as bad as her grandfather said, it would be so bad that she would not care to live longer in it. But be that as it might, there was no doubt as to what she must do now.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“She was a wild-looking, almost unearthly creature, with wild-flowing, black, uncombed hair, small in stature, with small hands and bright black eyes; but people said that she was very strong, and the children around declared that she worked day and night and knew nothing of fatigue. As to her age there were many doubts. Some said she was ten, and others five-and-twenty, but the reader may be allowed to know that at this time she had in truth passed her twentieth birthday.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“I’ll come and get the weed, Mally; but it shall all be for you,” said Barry.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“But in truth the man knew that she had saved his boy’s life, and that he had injured her instead of thanking her. He was now taking her to his heart, and as words were wanting to him, he was showing his love after this silent fashion. He held her by the hand as though she were a child,”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Mally!” he said, “Mally!” It could have wanted nothing further to any of those present to teach them that, according to Barry’s own view of the case, Mally had not been his enemy; and, in truth, Mally herself wanted no further triumph. That word had vindicated her, and she withdrew back to the hut.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“She remembered her threat to him before they had gone down on the rocks together, and her evil wish. Those words had been very wicked; but since that she had risked her life to save his. They might say what they pleased of her, and do what they pleased. She knew what she knew. Then the father raised his son’s head”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Hold by the hook, Barry,” she cried, pushing the stick of it before him, while she seized the collar of his coat in her hands. Had he been her brother, her lover, her father she could not have clung to him with more of the energy of despair.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“There was such a change in all kinds of business, following the mere printing of truth in the newspapers. It began to appear as if we had lived in a sort of delirium—not really knowing the facts about anything. As soon as we really knew the facts, we began to behave very differently, of course. What really brought all”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces

“Across the top was printing in gold letters: All intentional lies, in adv., editorial, news, or any other column... Scarlet All malicious matter... Crimson All careless or ignorant mistakes... Pink All for direct self-interest of owner... Dark green All mere bait—to sell the paper... Bright green All advertising, primary or secondary... Brown All sensational and salacious matter... Yellow All hired hypocrisy... Purple Good fun, instruction and entertainment... Blue True and necessary news and honest editorials... Ordinary print You never saw such a crazy quilt of a paper.”
― Elsinore Books, Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection: All 100 Masterpieces