Madame Bovary

“Has it ever happened to you,” Léon went on, “to come across some vague idea of one’s own in a book, some dim im­age that comes back to you from afar, and as the com­pletest ex­pres­sion of your own slight­est sen­ti­ment

in a stammering voice

She wished at the same time to die and to live in Paris.

hu­man speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we ham­mer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars.

We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fin­gers.

Lively once, ex­pans­ive and af­fec­tion­ate, in grow­ing older she had be­come (after the fash­ion of wine that, ex­posed to air, turns to vin­egar) ill-tempered, grumbling, ir­rit­able.

flames, how­ever, sub­sided, either be­cause the sup­ply had ex­hausted it­self, or be­cause it had been piled up too much. Love, little by little, was quelled by ab­sence; re­gret stifled be­neath habit; and this in­cen­di­ary light that had em­purpled her pale sky was over­spread and faded by de­grees.

She thought her­self now far more un­happy; for she had the ex­per­i­ence of grief, with the cer­tainty that it would not end.

The night was covered with stars,

moreover he was be­gin­ning to feel that de­pres­sion caused by the re­pe­ti­tion of the same kind of life, when no in­terest in­spires and no hope sus­tains it. He was so bored with Yon­ville and its in­hab­it­ants, that the sight of cer­tain per­sons, of cer­tain houses, ir­rit­ated him bey­ond en­dur­ance