black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Did not one spend the first half of one’s days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?

Emile Zola

Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.
EMILE ZOLA

Force Government Literature
Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy.
EMILE ZOLA

Boy Exquisite Myself Sin
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men.
EMILE ZOLA

Animal Appearance Connection Fate Fear Greatness Important Man
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

Fibre Improvement Life Pain Rebel Surrender
Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?
EMILE ZOLA

Beneath Civilization Human Live Smell
She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment.
EMILE ZOLA

Death Enjoyment Fingers Job Strangle
What will be the death of me are buillabaisses, food spiced with pimiento, shellfish, and a load of exquisite rubbish which I eat in disproportionate quantities.
EMILE ZOLA

Death Food Load Myself Quantity
The word realist means nothing to me, because I would subordinate reality to temperament. Give me what is true and I applaud; but give me what is individual and alive and I applaud even more.
EMILE ZOLA

Myself Praise Reality Temperature True Word
Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.
EMILE ZOLA

Drugs Myself Perfection Regret
Art for me…is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside of all the rules and all the demands of society.
EMILE ZOLA

Affirmation Art Demand Negotiation Rule Society
The vague torment of ambition.
EMILE ZOLA

Ambition One Liner
They 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 ZOLA

Confusion Dare Kind Mindset Nature
In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.
EMILE ZOLA

Photography View Yourself
These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here
EMILE ZOLA

Growth Ideas People Time Young
I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don’t care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.
EMILE ZOLA

Beautiful Intensity Myself Perfection Struggle
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they’ve been taught is wrong!
EMILE ZOLA

Fear Fools School Teaching Wrong

Did not one spend the first half of one’s days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Did not one spend the first half of one’s days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Emile Zola Quotes