The Yellow Wall-Paper Quotes

“It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way — it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“It does not do to trust people too much.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

“There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“Now why should that man have fainted? But he did,and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

“I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“I always lock the door when I creep by daylight.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

“I really have discovered something at last. Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move - and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very ' bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so:...”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw - not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“John doesn't know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.
It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“Its time we woke up,” pursued Gerald, still inwardly urged to unfamiliar speech. “Women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools - but who’s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and what’s more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes - and shoes - which of us wants to dance with her?”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . .
So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas . . .”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“Most men’s eyes, when you look at them critically, are not like that. They may look at you very expressively, but when you look at them, just as features, they are not very nice.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.
I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper

“It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.

The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off--the paper--in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“I don't like to look out of the windows even--there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.
But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time.
And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn!
I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“And there was you - your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“This was not life, this was a nightmare.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“I want to marry you, Malda - because I love you - because you are young and strong and beautiful - because you are wild and sweet and - fragrant, and - elusive, like the wild flowers you love. Because you are so truly an artist in your special way, seeing beauty and giving it to others. I love you because of all of this, because you are rational and highminded and capable of friendship - and in spite of your cooking!”
“But - how do you want to live?”

“As we did here - at first,” he said. “There was peace, exquisite silence. There was beauty - nothing but beauty. There were the clean wood odors and flowers and fragrances and sweet wild wind. And there was you - your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

“I am, unfortunately, one of those much-berated New England women who have learned to think as well as feel; and to me, at least, marriage means more than a union of hearts and bodies--it must mean minds, too.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories