Quote #70

'What's improper about it?' retorted the clerk. 'Everybody does it in Paris!' It was an irresistible and conclusive argument.

More from Gustave Flaubert

  1. The clerk assured her warmly that idealistic natures were rarely understood.
  2. His rage had sent him into Latin: he would have spouted Chinese or Greenlandic had he been able to, for he was in the throes of one of thos…
  3. As she listened to him, Madame Bovary marveled at how old she was: all those re-emerging details made her life seem vaster as though she ha…
  4. It wasn't the first time in their lives that they had seen trees, blue sky and lawn, or heard the flowing of water or the rustle of the bre…
  5. That was how they would have liked to be: what they were doing was to dream up ideals and then refashion their past lives to match them. Sp…
  6. She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague 'she' of all the poetry books.
  7. 'Ah!' she said, lifting her lovely tear-bright eyes to the ceiling. 'If you knew all the dreams I've dreamed!'
  8. A clear day's warmth will often move / A lass to stray in dreams of love

All Gustave Flaubert quotes