“But no one came. Because no one ever does.”

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

“I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.”

“Three Leahs to get to One Rachel.”

“Nobody had beheld the gravitation of the two into one”

“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.”

“The beggarly question of parentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.”