I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right.

Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe.

In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return.

After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.