Tess Quotes

• Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?" "Yes." "All like ours?" "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?" "A blighted one.

  Thomas Hardy

  Stars, Thinking, Apples

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Tess of the d'Ubervilles”, p.30, Xist Publishing

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it Tess?

  Thomas Hardy

  Stars, Sound

  Thomas Hardy (2007). “Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Second Edition”, p.65, Broadview Press

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks.

  Thomas Hardy

  Tess Of The D Urbervilles, Tricks, Novel

  Thomas Hardy (1892). “Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.

  Thomas Hardy

  Eye, Littles, Tess Of The D Urbervilles

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Diversion Classics)”, p.95, Diversion Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?

  Thomas Hardy

  Mind, May, Tess Of The D Urbervilles

  Tess of the D'Urbervilles ch. 12 (1891)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly.

  Alice Sebold

  Firsts, Conformity, Weirdness

  Alice Sebold (2009). “Lucky”, p.124, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.

  Thomas Hardy

  Distance, Hands, Suffering

  Thomas Hardy (1995). “Thomas Hardy: Three Great Novels”, JG Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don’t want to feel anything for you, Dante” “God, Tess. I don’t want to feel anything for you either.

  Tina St. John

  Want, Feels

  4 Copy quote

• Tess?” A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.

  Cassandra Clare

  Light, Doors, Voice

  Cassandra Clare (2014). “Clockwork Princess”, p.509, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Then he crouches down behind it, motions for Tess and me to sit down, and begins unbuttoning his vest. I blush scarlet and thank every god in the world for the darkness surrounding us. “I’m not cold and I’m not bleeding,” I say to him. “Keep your clothes on.” The boy looks at me. I would’ve expected his bright eyes to look dimmer in the night, but instead they seem to reflect the light coming from the windows above us. He’s amused. “Who said anything about you , sweetheart?

  Marie Lu

  Eye, Boys, Night

  4 Copy quote

• [...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing suddenly how much I'm anticipating meeting up with Tess again. Where she goes, I go, and vice versa. Peas in a pod. Then there's June. Even the thought of her name makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm almost embarrassed by my reaction. Are June and I a good match? No. It's the first word to pop into my mind. And yet, still.

  Marie Lu

  Cheer, Home, June

  4 Copy quote

• Vlad hated doing the paperwork as much as he did when a human employee quit, which was why they'd both made a promise not to eat quitters just to avoid the paperwork. As Tess had pointed out, eating the staff was bad for marale and made it so much harder to find new employees.

  Anne Bishop

  Promise, Quitting, Eating

  4 Copy quote

• Tess," I say. "I'm going to head down to the water.I'll be back in a minute." "You sure you can make it by yourself?" she asks. "I'll be fine." I smile. "If you see me floating unconscious out to sea,though-by all means,come and get me.

  Marie Lu

  Mean, Sea, Water

  Marie Lu (2011). “Legend”, p.121, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marry me," he said. "Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.

  Cassandra Clare

  Wish, Doe, Another Day

  Cassandra Clare (2014). “Clockwork Princess”, p.539, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

  Thomas Hardy

  Heart, Peace With God, Loss Of A Loved One

  Thomas Hardy (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)”, p.3633, Delphi Classics

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tess, Tess, Tessa. Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it—a heart ringing? But when you touch me, that is what it is like, as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.

  Cassandra Clare

  Beautiful, Heart, Names

  Cassandra Clare (2014). “Clockwork Princess”, p.523, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• IT WAS TESS who told me about the crowd going to the all-night dance. We'd been school friends. We'd picked mushrooms and pretended to have seen a big ship. She had got married since I went away; it was a made match, a man from the midlands, a Donal, who had worked in a garage but took to farming, out all day, draining fields and callows so that he could till them and sow corn.

  Edna O'Brien

  School, Night, Men

  Edna O'Brien (2007). “The Light of Evening”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Intensely moving but never sentimental, Academy Street is a profound meditation on what Faulkner called 'the human heart in conflict with itself'. In Tess Lohan, Mary Costello has created one of the most fully realized characters in contemporary fiction. What a marvel of a book.

  Ron Rash

  Moving, Book, Heart

  12 Copy quote

• Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Moving, Hands, Talking

  "Blind Lake". Book by Robert Charles Wilson, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel that I have read over and over and over again. Tess is a pure child who has an inner glow none of the others in the book possess. They reject her because she is different, and they try in every possible manner to destroy her, because they are jealous. It is an extraordinary love story.

  Laetitia Casta

  Children, Book, Jealous

  6 Copy quote

• Meanwhile, the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain. She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly -the thought of the world's concern at her situation- was found on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself.

  Thomas Hardy

  Pain, Grief, Passion

  Thomas Hardy (2008). “Tess of the d'Urbervilles”, p.103, OUP Oxford

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought.

  Thomas Hardy

  Passion, Structure, Passing

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Diversion Classics)”, p.113, Diversion Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.

  Thomas Hardy

  Past, Light, Long

  Thomas Hardy (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)”, p.3574, Delphi Classics

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm here, Tess. I'm right here, holding your hand. Adam's here, too, he's sitting on the other side of the bed. And Cal. Mum's on her way, she'll be just a minute. We all love you, Tessa. We're all right here with you.

  Jenny Downham

  Love You, Hands, Bed

  Jenny Downham (2007). “Before I Die”, David Fickling Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• That was enterprising," Will sounded nearly impressed. Nate smiled. Tess shot him a furious look. "Don't look pleased with yourself. When Will says 'enterprising' he means 'morally deficient.'" "No, I mean enterprising," said Will. "When I mean morally deficient, I say, 'Now, that's something I would have done'.

  Cassandra Clare

  Mean, Looks, Done

  4 Copy quote