Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they’ve been taught is wrong! - Émile Zola

Sometimes, forcing themselves to hope, they sought to resume the burning dreams of other days, and were quite astonished to find they had no imagination.

How evil life must be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to heaven!

She was a virgin and a warrior, disdainful of the male, which was what eventually convinced people that she really must be off her head.