I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered - and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.' - Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

"I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar — he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders.

"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."

"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders.

I wish I had only offered you
a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.'
'And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account.'
'Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane.'
'Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.'
'Just let me look at the cash.'
'No, sir; you are not to be trusted.

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get — when our will strains after a path we may not follow — we need neither starve from inanition, not stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste — and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.