“You have been resident in my house three months?""Yes, sir.""And you came from--?""From Lowood school, in -shire.""Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?""Eight years.""Eight years! you must be tenacious of life.”

“Just how many sisters do you have? (Valerius)Eight. (Tabitha)Eight? (Valerius)What? (Tabitha)I'm just pitying whatever poor males lived in that house with all of you. It must have been truly frightening at least one week out of every month. (Valerius)Was that a joke? (Tabitha)Merely a frightening statement of fact. (Valerius)”

“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet.”

“How do you walk into someone's life again after twenty-eight years? How do you pick up, when you were too young to know where you left off.”

“I love you, Em. I've loved you since I was eight years old, and I'll love you my whole life.”

“The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens - or doesn´t happen - the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then - after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it - the bamboo tree suddently sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!”