Émile Zola Quotes

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

Jean-Louis had never had a day's illness in his life. He was tall and as gnarled as an oak. The sun had baked his skin until it had the colour and toughness and stillness of a tree. With advancing years, he had lost his tongue. He now never spoke, considering such an activity pointless.

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.

Living in musty shadows and dismal, oppressive silence, Thérèse could see her whole life stretching out before her totally void, bringing night after night the same cold bed and morning after morning the same empty day.

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.

It was at times like this that one of those waves of bestiality ran through the mine, the sudden lust of the male that came over a miner when he met one of these girls on all fours, with her rear in the air and her buttocks busting out of her breeches.

There’s only one thing that warms my heart, and that is the thought that we are going to sweep away these bourgeois.

Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.

Hortense and Berthe nodded, as though profoundly impressed by the wisdom of their mother's pronouncements. She had long since convinced them of the absolute inferiority of men, whose sole function was to marry and to pay.

It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live!

When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: "If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down.

He [Eugène Rougon] believed exclusively in himself; where another saw reasons, Rougon possessed convictions; he subordinated everything to the incessant aggrandisement of his own ego. Despite being utterly devoid of real self-indulgence, he nevertheless indulged in secret orgies of supreme power.

Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy - love which creates life?

Speculation, speculation!' she [Caroline Hamelin] mechanically repeated, struggling with her doubts. 'Ah! the idea of it fills my heart with disturbing anguish.

In love as as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.

Evet! Bu utanç verici gösteriyi izliyoruz, borçlar ve suçlar altında ezilmiş kişiler suçsuz ilan ediliyor; buna karşılık onurun ta kendisi, yaşamı lekesiz bir adam cezalandırılıyor. Bir toplum bu noktaya geldiği zaman, artık çürümeye başlamış demektir.

Fransa'nın en büyük romancılarından birinin kopardığı "Üstelik bu insanlar uyuyabiliyorlar, eşleri ve çocukları var, onları seviyorlar!" çığlığını her okuyuşlarında yürekleri sızlayacak, kendi kendilerinden, kendi türlerinden utanacak, gerçek adalet özlemini bir kez daha duyacaklar.

Gerçeği gömmeniz boşuna, toprağın altında yol alıyor; bir gün, her yandan fışkıracak, öç bitkileri olarak açılacaktır.

Zola'nın italyan kökeni bile bir aşağılama nedeni olur. Bir gazeteci "Yarı-İtalyan, çeyrek Yunan, çeyrek Fransız, üç-dört kez kırma, hiç de güzel bir insanlık örneği değil!" diye yazar.