Quotes from Alexandre Dumas, père

Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life--for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes--I throw all my useless baggage in the sea, that's all, and remain with my will, prepared to live entirely alone and consequently entirely free.

Up to then, the joy of fulfilling, perhaps over-fulfilling, their duty had kept them in a state of exultation. Such a state is close to enthusiasm and that makes one insensible to the things of this earth. But their enthusiasm died down, and they had had gradually to return from the land of dreams to the world of reality.