Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
Fate and Free Will Quotes
"And take the Complete Fortune-Teller to the outhouse" […] The Complete Fortune-Teller was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had re...
Memory and the Past Quotes
In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber tha...
Women and Femininity Quotes
The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, and it walked still. (2.6)
Man and the Natural World Quotes
The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about the...
Justice and Judgment Quotes
Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure of Guilt intruding i...
Contrasting Regions Quotes
It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it […]. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisf...
Marriage Quotes
"[…] she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump card aright. And if he don't marry her afore he will after." (7.37)
Time Quotes
Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth spark...
Sex Quotes
"Well, my big Beauty, what can I do for you?" said he, coming forward. (5.30)