Rupert Birkin: Gudrun Brangwen. Gerald Crich. Tibby and Laura Lupton. Ursula Brangwen. Rupert Birkin. What peculiar names we all have. Do you think we've been singled out, chosen for some extraordinary moment in life, or are we all cursed with the mark of Cain?

Rupert Birkin: I abhor humanity, I wish it was swept away. It could go, and there would be no loss if every human being perished tomorrow.
Ursula Brangwen: So, you want everybody in the world destroyed?
Rupert Birkin: Yes, absolutely. Don't you yourself think it's a wonderful, clear idea? A world empty of people... just uninterrupted grass and a rabbit sitting there?
Ursula Brangwen: You don't seem to see much love in humanity. What about individual love?
Rupert Birkin: I don't believe in love any more than I believe in hate or grief. Love is an emotion. You feel or don't feel, according to your circumstances.
Ursula Brangwen: If you don't believe in love, what do you believe in? Just in the end of the world and rabbits?
Rupert Birkin: The point about L-O-V-E is that we hate the word, because we've vulgarised it. lt should be taboo, forbidden from utterance for many years... till we've found a new and better idea.

Rupert Birkin: I do believe in a permanent union between a man and a woman. Chopping about is merely an exhaustive process. But a permanent relationship between a man and a woman isn't the last word. lt certainly isn't.
Gerald Crich: Quite.
Rupert Birkin: We have to take down this love-and-marriage ideal from its pedestal. We want something broader. I believe in the additional perfect relationship, between man and man. Additional to marriage.
Gerald Crich: I don't see how they can be the same.
Rupert Birkin: No, not the same, but equally important... equally creative, equally sacred, if you like.
Gerald Crich: I know you believe something like that. Only, I can't feel it, do you see?

Rupert Birkin: I want the finality of love.

Rupert Birkin: I would like to die from our kind of life. Be born again... through a love that is like sleep. With new air around one, that no one's ever breathed before.

Rupert Birkin: It almost breaks my heart. My beloved country. It had something to express, even when it made this chair. Now all we can do is to fish amongst rubbish heaps... for remnants of the old expression. There's no production in us anymore... just sordid and foul mechanicalness.
Ursula Brangwen: I hate your past. I'm sick of it.
Rupert Birkin: Not as sick as I am of the accursed present.
Ursula Brangwen: Well, I don't want the past to take its place. I don't want old things.
Rupert Birkin: The truth is, we don't want things at all. The thought of a house and furniture of my own is hateful to me.