Does he write to you? Never a line. Does he send you a message? Never a word. It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or to belong to him.

To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gift -absolute gifts- which have not been acquired by one's effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.

And moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul . . . the brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.

I don't mind walking. I always feel so sorry for women who don't like to walk; they miss so much--so many rare little glimpses of life; and we women learn so little of life on the whole.

Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.

She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves.

There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.

But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!

I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.

Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.

To succeed, the artist much possess the courageous soul.

She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom.

She reminded him of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.

He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself [...].

The stillest hour of the night had come, the hour before dawn, when the world seems to hold its breath. The moon hung low, and had turned from silver to copper in the sleeping sky.

But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.

She was just having a good cry all to herself.

She felt that her speech was voicing the incoherency her thoughts, and stopped abruptly.

I hope you won't completely forget me.

Do you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select?

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.

But she laughed and looked at him with eyes that at once gave him courage to wait and made it torture to wait.

I love you, only you; no one but you. It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life-long, stupid dream.

The flowers were like new acquaintances; she approached them in a familiar spirit, and made herself at home among them.

The heart jealous of the soul!

She says queer things sometimes in a bantering way that you don’t notice at the time and you find yourself thinking about afterward.

The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they dared not yield. The rain was over; and the sun was turning the glistening world into a palace of gems.

She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.

The Doctor...told the old ever-new and curious story of the waning of a woman's love, seeking strange, new channels, only to return to its legitimate source after days of fierce unrest.

She seemed to have apprehended all of the composer's coldness and none of his poetry.

I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not.

I love you. Good-by--because I love you.

His coming was in the nature of a welcome disturbance; it seemed to furnish a new direction for her emotions.

She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them.

A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon everyone as they saw the pianist enter.

I don't want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others [...]

I have said it before, but I don't think I have ever came so near meaning it.

If ever a fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely their union.

[Edna lived] a dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions

One must possess many gifts … which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover … the artist must possess the courageous soul.

I couldn't help loving you if you were ten times his wife; but so long as I went away from you and kept away I could help telling you so.

If he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours', I should laugh at you both.

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.

By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex.

They had been permitted to sit up till after the ice-cream, which naturally marked the limit of human indulgence.

His manner invited easy confidence. The preliminary stage of becoming acquainted was one which he always endeavored to ignore when a pretty and engaging woman was concerned.

Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate.

You are the embodiment of selfishness.

And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.