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1 " If Fancy's lips had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared deeply stained. "
― Thomas Hardy , Under the Greenwood Tree
2 " Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal. "
3 " If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do. "
4 " There's a friendly tie of some sort between music and eating. "
5 " If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables? "
6 " It was the week after Easter holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they steamed in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as an accustomed proprietor. "
7 " When you've made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand - she's as good as any other; they be all alike in groundwork: 'tis only in the flourishes there's a difference. "
8 " When you've made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand- she's as good as any other; they'll be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in the flourishes there's a difference. "
9 " To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. "
10 " Thought failed him, and he returned to realities. "
11 " Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's lips had been real cherries, probably Dick's would have appeared deeply stained. "
12 " Why, you make anyone think that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim. "
13 " The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous extent ,though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree: tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at it's bark from year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of it's forks; and countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. "
14 " Tis my belief she’s a very good woman at bottom.”“She’s terrible deep, then. "
15 " How people will talk about one’s doings!” Fancy exclaimed.“Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other people for singing ’em. "
16 " Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you. "
17 " He looked at the daylight shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. "
18 " He was conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he reasoned was this, that the young creature whose graces had intoxicated him into making the most imprudent decision of his life, was less an angel than a women. "
19 " It being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one. "
20 " ...and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches, with their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. "