Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë, 1847

Emily Brontë’s only novel: on the Yorkshire moors, a housekeeper tells a new tenant the story of Heathcliff, a foundling taken in by the Earnshaw family, and of his fierce attachment to Catherine Earnshaw.

Start reading34 chapters, about 117,000 words

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I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.
Chapter IIIIn context
- Friendship
He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.
Chapter VIn context
- Clever Jabs
- Religion
Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.
Chapter VIIIn context
- Pride
A person who has not done one-half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.
Chapter VIIIn context
- Work
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.
Chapter IXIn context
- Sleep
- Thinking
I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.
Chapter IXIn context
- Nature
Not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.
Chapter IXIn context
- Love
My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!
Chapter IXIn context
- Love
“You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!”
Chapter XIn context
- Enemies
- Friendship
The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him; they crush those beneath them.
Chapter XIIn context
- Power
I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them!
Chapter XIIIn context
- Freedom
- Youth
Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.
Chapter XIIIIn context
- Life & Death
Be with me always⁠—take any form⁠—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
Chapter XVIIn context
- Life & Death
- Love
Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.
Chapter XVIIIn context
- Enemies
- Morality
And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe⁠—almost to remind my heart to beat!
Chapter XXXIIIIn context
- Emotion
I’ve done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I’m too happy; and yet I’m not happy enough. My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.
Chapter XXXIVIn context
- Happiness
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
Chapter XXXIVIn context
- Life & Death

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