Rochester Quotes

• Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure - you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Fate, Forget You, Strive

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.258, Penguin

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• I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Eye, Romance, Way

  Charlotte Bronte (2013). “Jane Eyre”, p.193, Simon and Schuster

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• Because when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart - have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face, or better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Heart, Eye, Hands

  Charlotte Bronte (2014). “Jane Eyre: Englische Originalausgabe”, p.199, Edition Lempertz

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• The clog of all pleasure, the luggage of life, is the best can be said for a very good wife.

  John Wilmot

  Marriage, Wife, Life Is

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• I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, or anything but that vain animal who is so proud of being rational.

  John Wilmot

  Dog, Animal, Proud

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (2006). “The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester”, p.23, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Man differs more from man than man from beast

  John Wilmot

  Men, Beast

  John Wilmot, John Adlard (2002). “The Debt to Pleasure: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the Eyes of His Contemporaries and in His Own Poetry and Prose”, p.103, Taylor & Francis

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• Dead we become the lumber of the world.

  John Wilmot

  World, Lumber

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (2006). “The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester”, p.5, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Books bear him up a while, and make him try to swim with bladders of philosophy.

  John Wilmot

  Philosophy, Book, Swim

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (2006). “The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester”, p.65, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Natural freedoms are but just: There's something generous in mere lust.

  John Wilmot

  Lust, Natural, Mere

  'A Ramble in St James' Park'

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• If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation.

  John Wilmot

  Grateful, Heart, Wine

  Letter to the diplomat Henry Savile, 1674.

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• Rochester: I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Moon, Volcanoes, White

  Charlotte Brontë “Jane Eyre”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre, Tessa pointed out. No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?

  Cassandra Clare

  Girl, Want, Poor

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “Clockwork Princess”, p.522, Simon and Schuster

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• At Rochester, I came with the same emotions as many of the entering freshman: everything was new, exciting and a bit overwhelming, but at least nobody had heard of my brothers and cousins.

  Steven Chu

  Cousin, Brother, Entering

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• I've been in radio, God, twenty years. I started as a stand-up comedian. I wanted to be Carol Burnett when I was growing up. Radio was just kind of an accident. I did morning radio in my hometown of Buffalo, then went to Rochester, then Chicago, and then New York.

  Stephanie Miller

  Morning, New York, Growing Up

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. August 22, 2006.

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• They haven't killed us yet," I say, and I imagine that one day I will fly a plane over Portland, over Rochester, over every fenced-in city in the whole country, and I will bomb and bomb and bomb, and watch all their buildings smoldering to dust, and all those people melting and bleeding into flame, and I will see how they like it. If you take, we will take back. Steal from us, and we will rob you blind. When you squeeze, we will hit. This is the way the world is made now.

  Lauren Oliver

  Country, Dust, Flames

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• I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar — he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. "The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too." "I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Hurt, Thinking, Expression

  Charlotte Bronte (2014). “The Complete Works Of Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor”, p.184, Harper Collins

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• 'My bride is here,' Rochester said , again drawing me to him, 'because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'

  Charlotte Bronte

  Will You Marry Me, Equal, Brides

  "Jane Eyre".

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• I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy." Mr. Rochester

  Charlotte Bronte

  Hands, Answers, Shakes

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• Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Wind, Roots, Tree

  "Jane Eyre". Book by Charlotte Bronte, October 16, 1847.

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• I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Country, Dream, New York

  Off the Page with Carole Burns, www.washingtonpost.com. May 9, 2006.

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• Well, I was born and raised in Rochester, New York.

  Arthur Rock

  New York, Popcorn, Born

  Interview with Rob Walker in San Francisco, California, as part of The Silicon Genesis Project with Stanford University, silicongenesis.stanford.edu. November 12, 2002.

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• To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts — when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break — at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent — I am ever tender and true. (Mr Rochester to Jane)

  Charlotte Bronte

  Eye, Heart, Character

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.213, Penguin

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• I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Love, Integrity, Women

  Charlotte Bronte (2013). “Jane Eyre”, p.327, Simon and Schuster

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• Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Kindness, Home, Back Again

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.202, Penguin

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• In the space of less than seven days, I attended a track meet in Boston, flew from there to Bowling Green for the National Jaycees, then to Rochester for the blind, Buffalo for another track meet, New York to shoot a film called The Black Athlete, Miami for Ford Motor Company, back up to New York for 45 minutes to deliver a speech, then into L. A. for another the same night.

  Jesse Owens

  Sports, New York, Athlete

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