Wuthering Heights Key Quotations

""Let me in- let me in!" "Who are you?" I asked, struggling meanwhile to disengage myself/ still it wailed, "Let me in!" and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear. "How can I!" I said at great length. "Let me go, if you want me to let you in!" /"Begone!" I shouted. "I'll never let you in, not if you beg for 20 years." "It is 20 years," mourned the voice: "20 years. I've been a waif for 20 years!"

First hints of what has happened at Wuthering Heights, and also highlights Cathy's strong ties to the Heights.

" I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!"

"For shame, Heathcliff! said I. "It is for God to punish wicked people, we should learn to forgive."

"No, God won't have the satisfication that I shall," he returned. "I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain."

Shows Heathcliff's determination for revenge, and hints at Nelly's strong religion.

"This is nothing" cried she: "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/ It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. 

Shows Cathy's desire to be higher up in the social system, her strong attachment to the Heights , and her deep devotation to Heathcliff.

" I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of yong Linton/ My love for Heathcliff resembles the enternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind."

Cathy's deep devotation to Heathcliff shown here, and how she loves him.

"You deserve this. You have killed yourself/You loved me- then what right had you to leave me?/ I have not broken your heart- you have broken mine/I forgive you. Forgive me!/ I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer- but yours! How can I?"

Shows how Heathcliff views Cathy now and how he blames her, but ultimately loves her. Shows Cathy's sorrow as she detoriates.

"May she wake in torment!/ Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as I am living, you said I killed you- haunt me, then!"/ I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

Shows Heathcliff's desire to be with Cathy, despite her actions with him. Shows his devotation to Cathy.

"He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and to previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfournate child on the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, "Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as a another, with the same wind to twist it!"

Shows the beginning of Heathcliff's revenge on Hindely, through Hareton, who he now has guardianship of.

"In every cloud, in every tree- filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day- I am surronded with her image/that I have lost her!"

Shows how Heathcliff is still devoted to Cathy, despite her death years ago. 

"the middle one grey, and half buried in heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonised by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare/imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth"

Shows how Cathy, Heathcliff and Edgar are at rest now, how their love triangle is still apparent in death and their strong contrasts with each other