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

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• 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

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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)

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• 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

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• It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity

  Thomas Hardy

  Perfect, Humanity, Would Be

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman”, p.182, Thomas Hardy

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• He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Tess,” he said. “I only wanted pleasant dreams for once.” “That is not the way to get them, Will,” she said softly. “You cannot buy or drug or dream your way out of pain.

  Cassandra Clare

  Dream, Pain, Tired

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.642, Simon and Schuster

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• Well...can't be any more dangerous than your crazy hospital break-in yeah?"-Tess (pg 59)

  Marie Lu

  Crazy, Break, Yeah

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• He frames my face with his hands as he says, "Tess. Only you could be brave enough to die with me. But I want you to live for me." We kiss, as desperate as though we were drowning. When our lips part, Alec says, "Forgive me.

  Claudia Gray

  Kissing, Hands, Forgive Me

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• 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

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• Bless thy simplicity, Tess

  Thomas Hardy

  Simplicity, Bless

  Thomas Hardy (2007). “Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Second Edition”, p.47, Broadview Press

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• [...] "I recall what you said to me once," Will went on. "That words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die -

  Cassandra Clare

  Book, Men, Together

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

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• 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

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• ...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

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• Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say "good morning" in public without being liquored up.

  Amelia Gray

  Morning, Sadness, Dating

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• [...] 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

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