How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
His mother's taciturny was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing towards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with them now. (3.3.125)
This is family in a nutshell, at least in this novel. The disintegration of the relationship between Clym and his mother is a key plot point of the novel and it's interesting that the decline of their relationship is marked largely by silence. The sentences here all build up to the last abrupt sentence, where we learn that mother and son now sit in awkward "half-silence" together.
Quote #2
"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your family. Keeping an inn – what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and they say he was an engineering gentlemen once, but has come down by being too outwardly given." (1.4.9)
Family and society are two highly interconnected themes in this novel, as we learn from Olly here, when she assesses how Damon may not be socially "good enough" to marry Mrs. Yeobright's niece. This gives us some great insight into the historical period as well, an era in which money and family connections mattered as much, if not more, than love in a marriage proposal.
Quote #3
When the west grew red the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant highway along which the expected man was to return. (2.2.39)
This final image of the Yeobright women setting out together to greet the "returning native" is extremely vivid and makes use of highly-descriptive words like "plunged," which gives us the sense that the heath is like some sort of body of water.
Quote #4
"I told her she might marry, but that I should take no interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."
"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong." (2.8.59)
Mrs. Yeobright's pride and stubborn nature really shine through here, and it's interesting to note Clym's speaking style. He starts off speaking fairly colloquially and using incorrect grammar, but he then takes on a very blunt and judgmental sentence, which shifts his tone.
Quote #5
"She is a good girl."
"So you think. A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has her life been! Her surname is not even her true one."
"She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely took her mother's name. And she is a lady by instinct." (3.5.14-17)
Themes of society and family collide again as Mrs. Yeobright voices her objections to Eustacia, all of which mainly revolve around her family connections, or lack thereof. Eustacia's somewhat shady past is a key detail here. The highly different ways Eustacia's background is characterized by Clym and his mother really illustrates the conflict between mother and son.
Quote #6
"You ought to have better opinions of me – I feared you were against me from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia.
"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much emphasis in her earnestness. "It is the instinct of every one to look after their own." (4.1.24-5)
The tiny details here help to illustrate how this argument gets so vicious – Mrs. Yeobright's tone uses too much "emphasis" since she feels so strongly on the subject. But it comes across as prejudice against Eustacia and not just support for her dear Clym. Also, Mrs. Yeobright's parting shot is a great sum-up of the themes of family in this novel, but it also suggests an important question: how do characters define family and decide who "their own" is?
Quote #7
At the same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled the sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some of his old solicitude for his mother's supplanter. (5.6.3)
There some weird Oedipal stuff going on between Clym and his mom (see Clym's "Character Analysis" for some details), and this short sentence helps to demonstrate that. Eustacia, Clym's wife, is characterized as Mrs. Yeobright's "supplanter," or as someone who moved in and replaced (or tried to) Clym's mother. Issues much, Clym?
Quote #8
"I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are getting weary of doing well."
"No," said her son; "I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?" (3.2.21-22)
Again, society and family themes come together. Mrs. Yeobright is disappointed by her son's life choices because he's giving up social prestige and success; Clym is questioning whether or not he even buys into social norms at this point. It's notable that Mrs. Yeobright insults Clym by comparing him to his father; she reveals some latent, or hidden, resentment towards Clym's dad. Clym's word choice is notable as well. He is "weary" of his mother, implying that he's heard this from her before and is sick of it.
Quote #9
"But it is right, too, that I should try to lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all." (3.2.46)
We get Mrs. Yeobright's conception of motherhood in a nutshell. Her job is to "lift" her son into better circumstances. But it's very interesting that her plans and hopes did not involve Clym returning. In a way, Mrs. Yeobright was happier with her son when she had an idea of him off being successful than when he is around in person, being difficult. Also, if motherhood has to do with "lifting," then it is very cool that the main scenes we have of Thomasin being a mother involve her literally lifting her baby in order to shelter her from a storm (5.8.51).
Quote #10
Yeobright had enunciated the word "her" with a fervour which, in conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal heart within the four seas could, in such circumstances have helped being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman. (3.3.141)
Apparently, the whole cliché of mothers-in-law who have it in for their daughters-in-law is a very old one. Stylistically, we see another good example of the narrator busting in with an aphorism about "maternal hearts," and we get a bit of humor as well when the narrator takes a pot shot at Clym's stupidly "indiscreet" statement.
Quote #11
It is the effect of marriage to engender in several directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. (4.2.23)
This is one of the best assessments of marriage that we have in the entire book – there's an idea that marriage is a living entity and it "engenders" or grows in new directions even as it "annihilates" or cuts off others.
Quote #12
"Eustacia, didn't any tender thought of your own mother lead you to think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did not one grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away?" (5.3.59)
This entire chapter, in which Clym and Eustacia have a huge fight, is really remarkable in terms of Clym's character – we get to hear him speak as he'd never spoken up to that point. Clym is eloquent and vicious. He displays a pettiness and a sense of malice that is kind of off-putting in places. Here we see how he speaks like an interrogator, asking a series of probing and mean questions.
Quote #13
Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all suspicion that Wildeve's interest in Eustacia had not ended with his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still. (5.6.39)
We learn a lot of about how Thomasin views family in this short passage – she is loyal to her blood-relative, but she considers Damon as the first-and-foremost person in her life. For Thomasin, the family she created through marriage has to take precedence over her blood relatives.