Quotes from Guy de Maupassant

He did not know how to make her understand that he would be happy, most happy, to become her husband in his turn. He certainly could not tell her that, now, at this moment, in this place, in the presence of this corpse; nevertheless he could, he believed, find one of those ambiguous, acceptable, complicated statements whose words have hidden significance, and which can, by their calculated reservations, express everything you intend.

since with women there is neither caste nor rank; and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.

A small lighted window at the end of the yard indicated the farmhouse. It seemed to Jeanne that her mind was expanding, was beginning to understand the psychic meaning of things; and these little scattered gleams in the landscape gave her, all at once, a keen sense of the isolation of all human lives, a feeling that everything detaches, separates, draws one far away from the things they love.

Alors, elle s'aperçut qu'elle n'avait plus rien à faire, plus jamais rien à faire... La douce réalité des premiers jours allait devenir la réalité quotidienne qui ferait la porte aux espoirs indéfinis,aux charmantes inquiétudes de l'inconnu. Oui, c'était fini d'attendre. Alors plus rien à faire aujourd'hui, ni demain, ni jamais.

Gewahren wir denn wirklich den hundertsten Teil von all dem, was es gibt? Sehen Sie, der Wind, die größte Naturkraft, die Menschen umwirft, Häuser vom Boden fegt, Bäume entwurzelt, das Meer in Wasserbergen aufwühlt, Klippen und Felsen zermalmt und die mächtigsten Schiffe in die Brandung hinaus wirft, der Wind, der tötet, pfeift, stöhnt, brüllt - haben Sie den schon gesehen und können Sie ihn sehen? Und trotzdem ist er doch da.

Elle aussi l'avait trouvé gentil ; et c'est uniquement pour cela qu'elle s'était donnée, liée pour la vie, qu'elle avait renoncé à toute autre espérance, à tous les projets entrevus, à tout l'inconnu de demain. Elle était tombée dans le mariage, dans ce trou sans bord pour remonter dans cette misère, dans cette tristesse, dans ce désespoir, parceque, comme Rosalie, elle l'avait trouvé gentil!

Now she was frightened, terribly frightened, and had a wild desire to run away, to ring, to call, but she dared not move, lest she might disturb his repose.

A terrible event had broken him down. He had fallen madly in love with a young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike ecstasy. After a year of unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly of heart disease, no doubt killed by love itself.

Children are often more sensitive than people think , and, if they are shut up in this way too early away from those they love, excessive sensitiveness, which plays havoc with their nerves, may develop and become pathological and dangerous.

Happy indeed are those to whom nature has given a thick skin and the armour of stoicism!

L'angoisse de l'attente fait désirer la venue de l'ennemi.

J'aime ce pays, et j'aime y vivre parce que j'y ai mes racines, ces profondes et délicates racines, qui attachent un homme à la terre où sont nés et morts ses aïeux, qui l'attachent à ce qu'on pense et à ce qu'on mange, aux usages comme aux nourritures, aux locutions locales, aux intonations des paysans, aux odeurs du sol, des villages et de l'air lui-même.

Voyez-vous, monsieur, entre pauvres gens, faut bien qu'on s'aide… C'est les grands qui font la guerre.

Le patron ? Un vrai juif ! Et vous savez, les juifs on ne les changera jamais. Quelle race ! Et il cita des traits étonnants d'avarice, de cette avarice particulière aux fils d'Israël, des économies de dix centimes, des marchandages de cuisinière, des rabais honteux demandés et obtenus, toute une manière d'être d'usurier, de prêteur à gages.

The smile floating on her lips. She's bored as well. She feels a bit guilty since she should feel great, there with all her family—but she suppresses a yawn. She'd rather be elsewhere. She's no longer used to long meals. She never liked them, by the way. I realize that I'm trying to invent a life for her. That's the problem with literature. One narrates. One embroiders. One adds material.

Tout ce qui nous entoure, tout ce que nous voyons sans le regarder, tout ce que nous frôlons sans le connaître, tout ce que nous touchons sans le palper, tout ce que nous rencontrons sans le distinguer, a sur nous, sur nos organes et, par eux, sur nos idées, sur notre cÅ"ur lui-même, des effets rapides, surprenants et inexplicables.

Tiens, tu es stupide comme toutes les femmes. Vous n'agissez jamais que par passion. Vous ne savez pas vous plier aux circonstances… vous êtes stupides ! 

It is necessary to know how to slip the all-important matter, rather hinted at than said right out, in between the description of two fashionable entertainments, without appearing to intend it. It is necessary to imply a thing by judicious reservations; let what is desired be guessed at; contradict in such a fashion as to confirm, or affirm in such a way that no one shall believe the statement

Well, then I will go on, however painful it may be to me to recall those terrible memories. What temptations! What trials! The devil often makes use of the most innocent things to lead a man astray.

Meetings constitute the charm of travelling. Who does not know the joy of coming, five hundred leagues from one's native land, upon a Parisian, a college friend, or a neighbour in the country? Who has not spent a night, unable to sleep, in the little jingling stage-coach of countries where steam is still unknown, beside a strange young woman, half seen by the gleam of the lantern when she clambered into the carriage at the door of a white house in a little town?

Comme je l'ai dit, le but unique des efforts de tout bon musulman est l'union intime avec Dieu. Divers procédés mystiques conduisent à cet état parfait, et chaque confédération possède sa méthode d'entraînement. En général, cette méthode mène le simple adepte à un état d'abrutissement absolu, qui en fait un instrument aveugle et docile aux mains du chef.

She was at least seventy, tall, withered, and angular, with white hair arranged in old-fashioned sausage curls on her temples. She was dressed in the quaint and clumsy style of the wandering Englishwoman, like a person to whom clothes were a matter of complete indifference; she was eating an omelette and drinking water.

And I can never feel the glad radiance of sunlit days without sadly remembering and pondering over the fate of the beggar who was such an outcast in life, that his horrible death was a relief to all who had known him.

She was no longer the fair-haired, colourless girl whom I had seen at the church fifteen years before, but a stout, over-dressed lady, one of those ladies with no age, no character, no elegance, no wit, nor any of the attributes that constitute a woman. She was merely a mother, a fat, commonplace mother, the breeder, the human brood-mare, the procreating machine made of flesh, with no interests but her children and her cookery-book.