Quotes from Kate Chopin

Why do you love him when you ought not to? Edna, with a motion or two, dragged herself on her knees before Mademoiselle Reisz, who took the glowing face between her two hands. Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth.

What embraces, in which the lilacs were crushed between them! What ardent kisses! What pink flushes of happiness mounting the cheeks of the two women!

One of these days, she said, I am going to pull myself together for a while and think - try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know.

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.

Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.

but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.

In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.

I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.

I would give up my life for my children, but not myself.

I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe?

So does he live, seeking, finding, joying and suffering.

She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.

Goodbye -- Because I love you.

...when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of joy that kills.

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

For the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her.

I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.

She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.

Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.