Excuse my dress. I was half an hour late this morning. When you lose half an hour in this house, you never can pick it up again, try how you may. -Reverend Finch's wife

— Wilkie Collins

He was, out of all sight (as I remember him), the nicest boy that ever spun a top or broke a window.

— Wilkie Collins

I am an average good Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the same as I am.

— Wilkie Collins

I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason.

— Wilkie Collins

I am thinking,’ he remarked quietly, ’whether I shall add to the disorder in this room, by scattering your brains about the fireplace.

— Wilkie Collins

I dread the beginning of her new life more than words can tell, but I see some hope for her if she travels - none if she remains at home.

— Wilkie Collins

If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Pearlie’s face, then, and then only, Anne Catherine, and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflections of one another.

— Wilkie Collins

If I ever meet with the man who fulfills my ideal, I shall make it a condition of the marriage settlement, that I am to have chocolate under the pillow.

— Wilkie Collins

I find novels compose my mind. Do you read novels too? - Reverend Finch's wife

— Wilkie Collins

If you look about you (which most people won't do)," says Sergeant Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business.

— Wilkie Collins