Émile Zola
196 quotes
Biography
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse...!
"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."
"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest."
"There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman."
"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation."
"One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines."
"Everything is only a dream."
"Paris flared — Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice."
"Dreyfus is innocent. I swear it! I stake my life on it — my honor! At this solemn moment, in the presence of this tribunal which is the representative of human justice, before you, gentlemen of the jury, who are the very incarnation of the country, before the whole of France, before the whole world, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By my forty years of work, by the authority that this toil may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By all I have now, by the name I have made for myself, by my works which have helped for the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. May all that melt away, may my works perish if Dreyfus be not innocent! He is innocent. All seems against me — the two Chambers, the civil authority, the military authority, the most widely-circulated journals, the public opinion which they have poisoned. And I have for me only an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honor."
"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."
"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!"
"A writer of great talent, to whom I complained of the little sympathy I have met with, made me this profound answer: "You have an immense fault which will close all doors against you: you cannot converse for two minutes with a fool without showing him that he is one.""
"The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it into the fire. Even the minor literary reviews, the ones that retail nightly the tittle-tattle from alcoves and private rooms, held their noses and talked of filth and stench. I am not complaining about this reception; on the contrary I am delighted to observe that my colleagues have such maidenly susceptibilities."
"Thérèse, residing in damp obscurity, in gloomy, crushing silence, saw life expand before her in all its nakedness, each night bringing the same cold couch, and each morn the same empty day."
"Thérèse could not find one human being, not one living being among these grotesque and sinister creatures, with whom she was shut up; sometimes she had hallucinations, she imagined herself buried at the bottom of a tomb, in company with mechanical corpses, who, when the strings were pulled, moved their heads, and agitated their legs and arms."
"The only ambition of this great powerful frame was to do nothing, to grovel in idleness and satiation from hour to hour. He wanted to eat well, sleep well, to abundantly satisfy his passions, without moving from his place, without running the risk of the slightest fatigue."
"She made a savage, angry effort at revolt, and, then all at once gave in. They exchanged not a word. The act was silent and brutal."
"They have stifled me with their middle-class gentleness, and I can hardly understand how it is that there is still blood in my veins. I have lowered my eyes, and given myself a mournful, idiotic face like theirs. I have led their deathlike life."
"The young woman seemed to take pleasure in being bold and shameless. She had no hesitation, no fear whatsoever. She threw herself into adultery with a sort of vigorous sincerity, defying danger and doing so with a sort of vanity in her defiance."
"Elle aimait ce garçon de cette tendresse bavarde que les vieilles femmes ont pour les gens qui viennent de leur pays, apportant avec eux des souvenirs du passé."
"La nature et les circonstances semblaient avoir fait cette femme pour cet homme, et les avoir poussés l'un vers l'autre."
"C'était comme un éclair de passion, rapide et aveuglant, dans un ciel mort."
"Il a besoin de cette femme pour vivre comme on a besoin de boire et de manger."
"L'idée de la mort, jetée avec désespoir entre deux baisers, revenait implacable et aiguë."
"Parfois, ils se forçaient à l’espérance, ils cherchaient à reprendre les rêves brûlants d’autrefois, et ils demeuraient tout étonnés, en voyant que leur imagination était vide."
"When they seated themselves in their carriage, they seemed to be greater strangers than before."