The Claverings Quotes

“As for reading, I doubt whether she did much better by the sea-side than she had done in the town. Men and women say that they will read, and think so—those, I mean, who have acquired no habit of reading—believing the work to be, of all works, the easiest. It may be work, they think, but of all works it must be the easiest of achievement. Given the absolute faculty of reading, the task of going through the pages of a book must be, of all tasks, the most certainly within the grasp of the man or woman who attempts it. Alas! no; if the habit be not there, of all tasks it is the most difficult.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings

“But women can bear anything better than desertion. Cruelty is bad, but neglect is worse than cruelty, and desertion worse even than neglect.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings

“Perhaps no terms have been so injurious to the profession of the novelist as those two words, hero and heroine. In spite of the latitude which is allowed to the writer in putting his own interpretation upon these words, something heroic is still expected; whereas, if he attempt to paint from Nature, how little that is heroic
should he describe!”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings

“If a man have not acquired the habit of reading till he be old, he shall sooner in his old age learn to make shoes than learn the adequate use of a book.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings

“I always think that those who are impervious to grief most be impervious also to happiness. If you have feelings capable of the one, you must have them capable also of the other.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings

“The evening was warm, and almost transparent in its clearness, and very quiet.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Claverings