How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"If I could only get myself to fall in love with you—you don't mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?"
"Oh dear, not at all!" said Biddy. "Don't mind me."
"If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me."
"But you never will, you see," said Biddy. (17.53-56)
Oh, Pip, you are such a charmer. We just love it when someone tells us that he wishes he could force himself to fall in love with us in order to solve all of his problems—it makes us feel just like cough medicine or extra-strength Advil. In this moment, Pip identifies his inability to control love as well as the way in which he's been blinded by love, but he's still so blind that he can't see that Biddy is TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH HIM. For now.
Quote #2
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her nonetheless because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection. (29.2)
Hm. Is Pip maybe just in lust with Estella? He sees her faults, but she's still impossible to resist—almost like she's put a spell on him. That doesn't sound like a love we want to be part of.
Quote #3
"I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing." (29.75)
Estella has never loved anything in her life—not even her jewels. (Shocking, right?) We never really get to know Estella, because the extent of her relationship with Pip is a few card games, some dark passage ways, and brief, cryptic conversations in which she tells Pip to stop loving her. Gee. If that's not the basis for a lifelong love affair, we don't know what is.
Quote #4
Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all), she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces—and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper—love her, love her, love her!" (29.85)
Miss Havisham reminds us here of a malfunctioning wind-up toy—all the wires are popping out and it's beginning to smoke. But at least we're getting a good look at how she works, and it's all betrayed and disappointed love.
Quote #5
She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love—despair—revenge—dire death—it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse. (29.88)
Well, love is kind of a curse in Great Expectations. Literally the only people who end up together who actually seem to be in love are Clara and Herbert—and they have to go to Cairo for their happy ending.
Quote #6
"Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here, together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed." (30.21)
Basically, everything Pip says really means, "I love Estella." We're surprised Herbert puts up with him.
Quote #7
By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything—she didn't say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant—but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart. (35.40)
Pip: feverish, inconsistent, and irrational. Joe: even, constant, and unconditional. Which kind of love would you want to have?
Quote #8
"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have?" "Love," replied the other. "You have it." "I have not," said Miss Havisham. (2.38.36-39)
Having raised Estella, bought her pretty things, given her all her jewels, Miss Havisham expects Estella to love her in return—but she's seriously misjudged the nature of love, just like she did when she was getting ready to marry a con artist.
Quote #9
"Estella," said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my trembling voice, "you know I love you. You know that I have loved you long and dearly." (44.37)
Hm. We can't help but think that when Pip uses the word "love" here, he means something else. This sounds a lot more like "obsession" and "infatuation" than actual, grownup love.
Quote #10
"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since - on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you can't choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!" (44.70)
Sigh. This is pretty much one of the best love speeches ever, right? And notice that Pip grounds his description of love in images of nature and of the landscape that surrounds him: Estella isn't even human, she's so much a part of the particles around him. But—and this is just a thought—maybe this is part of the reason that Dickens didn't want Estella and Pip to end up together: his love isn't exactly selfless. In fact, it's still all about himself.