Wilkie Collins (8th Jan 1824 – 23rd Sept 1889) was a English novelist, playwright and short story author, best known for The Woman in White, The Moonstone, and several other classic Victorian works.
Collins’ books have stood the test of time, The Woman in White is a classic and The Moonstone is considered to be the first ever detective novel, spawning one of the most popular genres in literature.
While his writing is set in the Victorian age, his values clearly weren’t and his characters were considered somewhat radical for their day, which possibly shows why the author stands the test of time.
Today we have ten of our favourite Wilkie Collins quotes, spoken confidently through his characters, and the impact they still have today is testament to the authors continuing popularity.
The books – the generous friends who met me without suspicion – the merciful masters who never used me ill!
The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?
Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.
I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.
My business in life is to eat, drink, sleep, and die. Everything else is superfluity and I will have none of it.
Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.
Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if only you pull it in the right way.
Where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image that has been once fixed in it by a true love? Books tell us that such unearthly creatures have existed – but what does our own experiences say in answer to books?
Men little know when they say hard things to us how well we remember them, and how much harm they do us.
Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise.
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