French writer (1840-1902)
All of a sudden, in the good-natured child, the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater.
EMILE ZOLA
Nana
Sin became a luxury, a flower set in her hair, a diamond fastened on her brow.
EMILE ZOLA
La Curee
Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity.
EMILE ZOLA
The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories
In Paris, everything's for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.
EMILE ZOLA
The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories
Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy -- love which creates life?
EMILE ZOLA
L'Argent
Yes! live life with every fibre of one's being, surrender oneself to it, with no thoughts of rebellion, without deluding oneself that one can improve it and render it painless.
EMILE ZOLA
Le Docteur Pascal
It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer.
EMILE ZOLA
Truth
Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust.
EMILE ZOLA
The Masterpiece
Lovers are made by a kiss.
EMILE ZOLA
The Fortune of the Rougons
The sole instrument of life was heredity, which made the world; so that if one could only understand it, master it and make it do one's bidding, one could remake the world at will.
EMILE ZOLA
Le Docteur Pascal
Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
EMILE ZOLA
Germinal
Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.
EMILE ZOLA
L'Assommoir
An entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl.
EMILE ZOLA
Truth
All that was really there was still more misery -- oh yes! as much of that as you like.
EMILE ZOLA
Germinal
When a peasant begins to feel the need for instruction, he usually becomes fiercely calculating.
EMILE ZOLA
The Fortune of the Rougons
A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
EMILE ZOLA
Nana
One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.
EMILE ZOLA
Le Figaro
If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.
EMILE ZOLA
attributed, And I Quote
Inability, human incapacity, is the only boundary to an art.
EMILE ZOLA
Le Naturalisme Au Theatre
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
EMILE ZOLA
The Masterpiece