Quotes from Émile Zola

It is a crime to mislead public opinion, to utilize for a deadly task this opinion which has been perverted until it becomes delirious.

I accuse the three experts in handwriting, Sieurs Belhomme. Varinard and Couard, of having made lying and fraudulent reports, unless a medical inquiry should prove them to be suffering from diseased sight and judgment.

I have but one passion—that of light. This I ask for in the name of humanity, which has suffered so much, and which has a claim to happiness. My passionate protest is but the cry of my soul. Let anyone who dares bring me before an Assize Court, and let the inquiry be held in broad daylight. I am waiting.

Ce fut un naïf, un naïf sublime, resté sur le seuil du temple, à genoux devant des cierges qu'il prenait de loin pour des étoiles.

She came out in a cold sweat when she thought about the future, saying she felt like a coin someone had tossed in the air that might land heads or tails depending on how the pavement lay.

When the future is without hope, the present tastes appallingly bitter.

Hanya orang-orang tak berumah, yang memang sudah tidak punya apa-apa dan karenanya tidak mungkin kehilangan apa-apa, yang ingin melihat tembak-menembak dimulai. Lisa, kepada Quenu

No, the only good was to be found in non-existence or, if one had to exist, in being a tree, a stone, or lower still, a grain of sand, for that cannot bleed under the heel of every passer-by.

Hanya orang-orang tak berumah, yang memang sudah tidak punya apa-apa dan karenanya tidak mungkin kehilangan apa-apa, yang ingin melihat tembak-menembak dimulai

Whenever he had spoilt a piece of work he always set himself below the meanest labourer who had at least brawn enough to do his job. (53)

Whenever they were together, fanfares cleared the way before them and they picked up Paris in one hand and put it calmly in their pocket. (64)

All at once, she had fallen into the most extreme wretchedness: that of believing that one is not loved.

a boundless contempt for everything outside their art, for society, and above all, for politics. (64)

il la tuait de ses caresses, après l'avoir rouée de coups.

A iubi, a iubi! È™i acest cuvânt pe care nu-l pronunÈ›a, care vibra de la sine în ea, o mira È™i o f?cea s? surâd?.

Things...oh! you can't imagine what they were like! Things that get you here, somehow, at the back of your head, like a woman breathing down your neck...Not like a kiss...No, more insubstantial that that,,,a breath, a soft, faint breath. Oh! it's like...like feeling your soul going out of your body! (71)

The fire from heaven had fallen on this Sodom in the bowels of the earth where long ago pit girls committed untold abominations, and it had fallen so swiftly that they had not had time to come up, so that to this very day they were still burning down in this hell.

No joy could be greater, they knew, than that of being acknowledged a master, as he was. So he gave up trying to make himself understood and sat listening to them, without a word (79)

You see, everything is fine so long as you make money by it." These last words seemed to freeze the serious men. The conversation dropped flat, and each appeared to avoid his neighbour's eyes.

Since they dared, I too will dare.

And they wandered side by side, each talking at the top of his voice, for his own benefit, as the stars grew paler and paler in the morning sky. (51)

Nobody even spoke now, for they were all stupified by the accmulation of woes-- granpa coughing and spitting black, with his old rheumatic complaint returning to dropsy, father asthmatical, his knees swollen up with water, mother and the children scarred by scrofula and hereditary anaemia. Of course all that was part of the job, and you didn't complain except when the lack of food finished you off.

for all around on the bridges and embankment Paris roared while they, on the water's edge, tasted all the joy of being alone and ignored by the rest of the world. From that moment the wharf was their little strip of countryside (93)

Est-ce qu'une femme a besoin de savoir jouer et chanter ? Ah ! mon petit, tu es trop bête... Nana a autre chose, parbleu ! et quelque chose qui remplace tout.