Émile Zola Quotes

Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.

On May 5, 1896, he wrote in his diary; “I have no longer anything to say; everything is alike in its horrible cruelty.

They were all listening to him with the curiosity and, if the truth were known, the utter indifference of practical people who had lost their fear of his God of wrath and chastisement. Why be frightened and deferential and seek pardon when the idea of the devil now merely made them laugh and they no longer believed in an avenging Lord who sent the wind and the hail and the thunder? It was just a waste of time; it was much more sensible to keep your respect for the forces of law and order: they were stronger.

He beheld Lourdes, contaminated by Mammon, turned into a spot of abomination and perdition, transformed into a huge bazaar, where everything was sold, masses and souls alike!

La nature et les circonstances semblaient avoir fait cette femme pour cet homme, et les avoir poussés l'un vers l'autre.

The shrub that half concealed her was a malignant plant, a Madagascan tanghin tree with wide, box-like leaves with whitish stems, whose smallest veins distilled a venomous fluid. At a moment when Louise and Maxime laughed more loudly in the reflected yellow light of the sunset in the little boudoir, Renée, her mind wandering, her mouth dry and parched, took between her lips a sprig of the tanghin tree that was level with her mouth, and sank her teeth into one of its bitter leaves.

Things were definitely going badly. The night looked like ending in disaster. In one corner of the room Maria Blond had started squabbling with Léa de Horn, whom she accused of sleeping with men who weren't really rich.

Hortense and Berthe nodded, as though profoundly impressed by the wisdom of their mother's pronouncements. She had long since convinced them of the absolute inferiority of men, whose sole function was to marry and to pay.

... мужчины пренесносный народ: когда
они спят с женщиной, то все время стаскивают с нее одеяло...

Ne dis pas ces choses, répétait-elle, car je n'aurais plus la force de te quitter, je resterais là... Donne moi du courage plutôt; dis-moi que nous nous verrons encore...

In love as as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.

"Angelique, with both hands open, lying limply on her knees, was giving herself. And Felicien remembered the evening on which she had run barefoot through the grass, so adorable that he had pursued her, and whispered in her ear, "I love you". And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, "I love you." And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, "I love you", the eternal cry that had finally emerged from her wide-open heart. "I love you... Take me, carry me away, I am yours.

"‎"Well then! it was the end; his ruin was complete. Even if he mended the cables and lit the fires, where would he find men? Another fortnight's strike and he would be bankrupt. And in this certainty of disaster he no longer felt any hatred of the Montsou bandits; he felt that all had a hand in it, that it was a general agelong fault. They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.

İlle de bir sınıfın öbürünü yenmesi gerekiyorsa, çok daha yeni ve canlı bir sınıf olan emekçi halkın zevke eğlenceye dalıp çürümüş olan kentsoylu sınıfı yenmesi daha akla yatkın değil miydi? Belki kan dökülecek, ama sonunda yepyeni bir toplum ortaya çıkacaktı. Yaşlanmış ulusları canlandıracak bu barbarca saldırıyı işteyişte aslında pek yakında patlak verecek gerçek devrime, emekçi halkın devrimine duyulan şaşmaz inanç gizliydi; bu devrim şu anda gökyüzünü kana boyayan güneş gibi yüzyılın son günlerinde bütün dünyayı tutuşturacaktı.

No, the only good in life lay in not being - or, if one had to be, then in being a tree, a stone, or even less than that, the grain of sand that cannot bleed beneath the grinding heel of a passer-by.