“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”

“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any...”

“...[M]y inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose. I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life.”

“I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be fresh:”

“The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.”

“I do not think the sunny youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy - not as angels but as few are happ...”

“~Do you like him much? ~I told you I like him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much? He is full of faults. ~Is he? ~All boys are. ~More than girls? ~Very likely. Wise peo...”

“A strong, vague persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I could go forward— that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in time open— predominated over other...”