Wuthering Heights quotes explore a deep, unreciprocated passion and vengeance.
The novel chronicles the emotionally tumultuous relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and her adopted brother, Heathcliff.
It’s set against the eerie backdrop of the Wuthering Heights manor in the Yorkshire moors.
Heathcliff’s relentless pursuit of revenge against those who wronged him, including Catherine’s husband and his adopted family, creates a cycle of misery and anguish.
Wuthering Heights Quotes With Page Numbers Volume 1
“Terror made me cruel . . .”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Mr. Lockwood), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 25
“I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 29
“I shall be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 55
“It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 61
“A person who has not done one half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Mr. Lockwood), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 62
“I’ve dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it – but take care not to smile at any part of it.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 80
“If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.”
“Because you are not fit to go there,” I answered. “All sinners would be miserable in heaven.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 80
“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 80
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw). Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 81
“He shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw). Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 81
“Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 81
“I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that not because he’s handsome Nelly but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 81
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
~Emily Jane Brontë, Wuthering Heights,(Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 82
“Nelly, I am Heathcliff – he’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself – but, as my own being.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff). Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 83
“I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 82
“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Healthcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 82
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Mr. Lockwood), Volume 1, Chapter 10, Page 92
“Honest people don’t hide their deeds.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 1, Chapter 10, Page 103
“I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free… Why am I so changed? I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 1, Chapter 12, Page 125
“I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Chapter 12, Page 125
“I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I could have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then – if you don’t believe me, you don’t know me – till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 14, Page 147
“He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 1, Chapter 14, Page 148
“If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 14, Page 148
Quotes From Wuthering Heights Volume 2
“Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?” was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 160
“You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff). Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 161
“The thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I’m tired of being enclosed here. I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Pages 161-62
“I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 162
“How cruel, your veins are full of ice-water and mine are boiling.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 162
“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been – cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you – they’ll damn you. You loved me – what right had you to leave me? What right – answer me – for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you – Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 14, Page 162
“You loved me-then what right had you to leave me? What right-answer me-for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 1, Pages 162-63
“I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 163
“Kiss me again, but don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer–but yours! How can I?”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 1, Page 163
“It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,’ he answered. ‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 1, Chapter 1, Page 163
“Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 1, Page 163
“May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you – haunt me, then.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you–haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe–I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“You said I killed you-haunt me, then! […] Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“May she wake in torment!” he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. “Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment!” he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. “Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“And I pray one prayer–I repeat it till my tongue stiffens–Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you–haunt me, then!…Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw). Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
“I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Isabella Linton), Volume 2, Chapter 3, Page 174
“Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Hindley Earnshaw). Volume 2, Chapter 3, Page 176
“Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 2, Chapter 3, Page 183
“I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 6, Page 208
“I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be — that proves I love him better than myself.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw), Volume 2, Chapter 8, Page 231
“In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine, connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least – for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree – filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object, by day I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men, and women – my own features mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 2, Chapter 19, Page 323
“The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 2, Chapter 19, Page 323
“I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 19, Page 326
“I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 2, Chapter 20, Page 337
What is the most famous quote in Wuthering Heights?
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Catherine Earnshaw). Volume 1, Chapter 9, Page 81
What was Heathcliff’s famous quote?
“Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
What is the last line of Wuthering Heights?
“I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Character: Nelly Dean), Volume 2, Chapter 20, Page 337
What is the quote when Heathcliff dies?
“I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 2, Page 169
What were Heathcliff’s last words?
“I’m too happy; and yet I’m not happy enough. My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.'”
~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, (Heathcliff), Volume 2, Chapter 20, Page 333