Madame Bovary Quotes

She had bought herself a blotter, a writing case, a pen and some envelopes, although she had no one to write to; she would dust off her whatnot, look at herself in the mirror, pick up a book, then...

Emma was inwardly pleased to feel that she had so quickly attained that rare ideal of a pale, languid existence, beyond the reach of mediocre spirits. (I.6.10)

[Emma] considered herself much more unhappy now, for she had experienced grief and knew it would never end. A woman who had imposed such great sacrifices on herself certainly had a right to indulge...

In her longing she confused the pleasures of luxury with the joys of the heart, elegant customs with refined feelings. Did not love, like Indian plants, require prepared soil and special temperatur...

Would this misery last forever? Was there no escape from it? And yet she was certainly just as good as all those other women whose lives were happy! She had seen duchesses at La Vaubyessard who had...

It seemed to her that certain parts of the earth must produce happiness like a plant indigenous to that soil and unable to flourish anywhere else. If only she could lean over the balcony of a Swiss...

Emma, once so well-groomed and refined, now went for days without putting on a dress, wore gray cotton stockings and used cheap tallow candles. (I.9.57)

Metaphorical expressions such as "betrothed," "spouse," "heavenly lover," and "eternal wedlock," which constantly recur in sermons, stirred previously unknown depths of sweet emotion in her soul. (...

Endless sarabands ran through her head and, like dancing girls on a flowered carpet, her thoughts skipped with the notes, moving from dream to dream, sorrow to sorrow. (I.9.31)