“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
— Wuthering Heights (1847)
Catherine Earnshaw on Heathcliff. Not romantic love in the conventional sense but something more elemental — a claim of ontological identity between two people.
Author Quotes
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature.
“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
— Wuthering Heights (1847)
The fuller version of Catherine's declaration. The beloved is not an other but a more authentic version of the self — love as self-recognition.
“I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”
— Wuthering Heights (1847)
Catherine describes dreams that permanently transform consciousness. Brontë captures the way certain experiences — dreams, loves, losses — don't just happen to us but change what we are.
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
— Wuthering Heights (1847)
Catherine's love for Heathcliff as cosmic necessity. Without him the universe itself becomes alien — the most extreme statement of romantic dependency in English literature.