Quote 1
She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery it came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had been forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.
“No—” she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him (15.134-5).
Love is inexorable. Despite the fact that Lucy is engaged, and Cecil is, like, right there, George can’t contain his passion – and he has no interest in containing it. He believes, unlike the other characters at this point, in being honest… and being honest means kissing Lucy. Again.
Quote 2
“[…] have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?"
"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?"
"So one would have thought," said [Lucy] helplessly. "But things are so difficult, I sometimes think" (1.99-101).
Here, Lucy shows us how different she is from the rest of the contented, conventional characters in the novel early on. Her subtle sense that there’s a difference between what’s polite (or “delicate”) and what’s actually right and good (or “beautiful”) is not one that jives with the social values and expectations of the day.
Quote 3
[…] the gates of liberty seemed still unopened. [Lucy] was conscious of her discontent; it was new to her to be conscious of it. "The world," she thought, "is certainly full of beautiful things, if only I could come across them" (4.6).
Wandering through the city alone, Lucy begins to realize that she’s not happy with life as she knows it. However, she’s obviously not sure how to go about breaking away from that life.
Quote 4
"She was a novelist," said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one, for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety by print. Her attitude was: “If books must be written, let them be written by men”; and she it at great length, while Cecil yawned and Freddy played at "This year, next year, now, never," with his plum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath (13.14).
Despite the fact that Mrs. Honeychurch is an adorable, lovable, and generally charming character, she is firmly rooted in the old-fashioned world that holds Lucy back. Her opinion on female authors demonstrates that she totally believes, without malice, in the pre-assigned traditional roles of men and women.
Quote 5
"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her" (3.5).
Indeed it would, Mr. Beebe! The clergyman, wittily observant as always, poses a certain challenge to Lucy here; we see the results emerge in the rest of the book, as Lucy struggles to bring the intensity of feeling that show up in her music to the forefront of her real life.
Quote 6
“You despise my mother—I know you do—because she's conventional and bothers over puddings; but, oh goodness!"—she rose to her feet—"conventional, Cecil, you're that, for you may understand beautiful things, but you don't know how to use them; and you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement. You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when you came to people—" She stopped (17.8).
Here, Lucy finally calls Cecil out on his obnoxious and profoundly antisocial habit of thinking of everything – people, relationships, basically the entire human world – in terms of stuffy art history. By treating everyone and everything around him as objects (whether as works of art or worthless junk), he fails to understand the deeper, incredibly human feelings that Lucy possesses.
Quote 7
"Poor girl? I fail to understand the point of that remark. I think myself a very fortunate girl, I assure you. I'm thoroughly happy, and having a splendid time. Pray don't waste time mourning over me. There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it. Good-bye. Thank you both so much for all your kindness. Ah, yes! there does come my cousin. A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a wonderful church" (2.49).
We see Lucy deceive herself for the first time here, in conversation with Mr. Emerson. At this point, she’s unskilled at lying, and it comes off as awkward and hilariously uncool.