Jude the Obscure Love Quotes

Boom! That's the way a skilled writer describes falling in love: a new atmosphere, because Jude-in-love is living in a different world from Jude-not-in-love-but-only-interested-in-studying.

Jude is like a lot of us. He falls in love and everything else in his world kind of gets thrown upside down. His past thoughts and dreams are subdued by this one feeling. Unfortunately for him, at this point, that feeling is about Arabella, and we all know how that works out.

Jude is an emotional guy. When it comes to love, it's about feeling and action; it's not about planning and calculation. Maybe this is pure, and maybe this is what gets him into trouble. You be the judge.

Jude can justify it any way he wants, but he is in love with Sue from before he even talks to her. This whole needing to do stuff other than work is just an excuse to see her as often as he possibly can.

(By the way, the "twain" in this passage is Jude and Phillotson, caught up in their efforts to win Sue's heart. "Twain" just means two people here.) Ugh! One of the most appealing and most aggravating aspects of Sue is that she is just oblivious when people are in love with her. This causes Jude and Phillotson (and Sue, for that matter) quite a bit of heartache down the line.

You gotta love vaguely repressed Victorian proclamations of love (or at least proclamations of serious like). Jude is saddened to hear that Sue once had a pretty intense emotional affair with a "scholar friend" before meeting Jude or Phillotson—but he still "[cares] very much about" her! Considering how much Jude gives up for Sue, we think that a stronger word than "care" might be required here.

I'm pretty sure that's the Victorian equivalent of, "I like you as a friend." Ouch. Of course, we know Sue is protesting too much, but it might be nice if she were a little more in touch with her feelings.

Don't forget that there is a moral and social code in this novel that differs from the codes many people follow today. Jude truly believes that fate will fling down punishments for him loving his cousin while technically still married to another woman, even though that other woman left the country and married another dude and is a total witch (and not the cool Hermione Granger kind of witch).

That's a lovely little snapshot of how Jude feels about Sue. The worst part about their mutual suffering as the book goes on is that they have to watch each other suffer, as well as going through their own hard times. Their love for one another adds to their pain as their lives get worse and worse.

This quote has to do with how people act when rivals in love appear, and how jealousy and guilt can affect things. However, on its own, it is almost a perfect summation of how people will do things in the name of love that they would never do otherwise. People in love are crazy, seriously.