“Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got— I know not how— I got into the heart of city life.”

“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.”

“I know that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half-idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal- nay, my idol- to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathising with what I felt!”

“Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line - that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen - that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.”

“I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also.  No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened.  There was a heaven-a temporary heaven-in this room for me if I chose.”

“I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth,but i experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed, and the flame of resentment extinguished”

“And as for the vague something --- was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression? --- that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver, and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare --- to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature.”