Paris, like every pretty woman, is subject to inexplicable whims of beauty and ugliness.
Honore de BalzacWhen a woman starts talking about her duty, her regard for appearances, and her respect for religion, she raises so many bulwarks which she delights to see captured by storm.
Honore de BalzacMarriageable girls as well as mothers understand the terms and perils of the lottery called wedlock. That is why women weep at a wedding and men smile.
Honore de BalzacA Creole woman is like a child, she wants to possess everything immediately; like a child, she would set fire to a house in order to fry an egg. In her languor, she thinks of nothing; when passionately aroused, she thinks of any act possible or impossible.
Honore de BalzacOne admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings carry them away. Even their dissimulation comes naturally to them, and in them crime is free of all baseness. Most of the time they simply do not know how it happened.
Honore de Balzac