The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one’s toes on the gravestones.
EMILE ZOLAThe past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one’s toes on the gravestones.
EMILE ZOLAThe camembert with its venison scent defeats the Marolles and Limbourg dull smells; It spreads its exhalation, smothering the other scents under its surprising breath abundance.
EMILE ZOLAIf something’s just, I’ll let myself be hacked to bits for it.
EMILE ZOLAThrough the centuries, the history of peoples is but a lesson in mutual tolerance.
EMILE ZOLAA god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy.
EMILE ZOLARespectable people, What bastards!
EMILE ZOLABlow the candle out, I don’t need to see what my thoughts look like.
EMILE ZOLAWhen truth is buried, it grows. It chokes. It gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.
EMILE ZOLACivilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
EMILE ZOLAAn entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl.
EMILE ZOLAEvery wave is a water sprite who swims in the current, each current is a path which snakes towards my palace, and my palace is fluidly built at the bottom of the lake, in the triangle of earth, fire and water.
EMILE ZOLAThey dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.
EMILE ZOLAThe artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
EMILE ZOLAIn Paris, everything’s for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.
EMILE ZOLAIt is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer.
EMILE ZOLAArt is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.
EMILE ZOLA