How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

The happier a man, the more apt he is to tremble. In hearts exclusively tender, anxiety and jealousy are in exact proportion to happiness.

Though your vulgarian does not readily admit that feelings can change overnight, certainly two lovers often part far more abruptly than they came together.

Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles.

There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

When women love, they forgive everything...

At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.