Émile Zola Quotes

Existence is so bitter for every one of us! Ought we not to forgive others much, my friend, if we wish to merit forgiveness ourselves?

Great disorders lead to great conversions. Providence would have its opportunity.

Amid that company of gentlemen with the great names and the old upright traditions;, the two women sat face to face, exchanging tender glances, conquering, reigning, in tranquil defiance of the laws of sex, in open contempt for the male portion of the community. The gentlemen burst into applause.

Satin occupied a couple of rooms, which a chemist had furnished for her in order to save her from the clutches of the police; but in little more than a twelvemonth she had broken the furniture, knocked in the chairs, dirtied the curtains, and that in a manner so furiously filthy and untidy, that the lodgings seemed as though inhabited by a pack of mad cats.

Madame Jules was a woman of no age. She had the parchment skin and changeless features peculiar to old maids whom no one ever knew in their younger years.

He experienced keen pleasure mingled with remorse, the kind of pleasure known only to Catholics who, in the midst of sin, are goaded by the fear of hell.

Ce fut une jouissance mêlée de remords, une de ces jouissances de catholique que la peur de l’enfer aiguillonne dans le péché.

He was a young dandy, and his habiliments, even to his gloves, were entirely yellow.

She offered herself to him with that quiet expression which is peculiar to a good-natured courtesan.

The night threatened to end in the unloveliest way. In a corner by themselves, Maria Blond and Léa de Horn had begun squabbling at close quarters, the former accusing the latter of consorting with people of insufficient wealth.

The air there was heavy with the somnolence which accompanies a long vigil, and the lamps cast a wavering light, whilst their burnt-out wicks glowed red within their globes. The ladies had reached that vaguely melancholy hour when they felt it necessary to tell each other their histories.

Both women, looking different ways, kept shrugging their shoulders, and asking themselves how the deuce the other could tell such woppers!

Wasn't it true that the moment two women were together in the presence of their lovers their first idea was to do one another out of them? It was a law of nature!

She was listening to his proposals, and continually refusing them with shakes of the head, and that temptress's laughter which is peculiar to a voluptuous blonde.

The Russians had a great taste for her owing to her embonpoint.