He had ceased to believe in the efficacy of alms; it was not sufficient that one should be charitable, henceforth one must be just. Given justice, indeed, horrid misery would disappear, and no such thing as charity would be needed.

— Émile Zola

He knew that, from now on, every day would be alike, that they would all bring the same sufferings. And he saw the weeks, the months, the years that awaited him, gloomy and implacable, coming one after the other, falling on him and suffocating him bit by bit. When the future is without hope, the present takes on a vile, bitter taste.

— Émile Zola

Helene, her eyes once more raised and remote, was deep in a dream. She was Lady Rowena, she was in love, with the deep peaceful passion of a noble soul. This spring morning, the loveliness of the great city, the first wallflowers scenting her lap, had little by little melted her heart.

— Émile Zola

Helene slowly surveyed the room. In this respectable society, amongst these apparently decent middle-class people, were there none but faithless wives? With her strict provincial morality, she was amazed at the licensed promiscuity of Parisian life.

— Émile Zola

He [Muff at] experienced a sense of pleasure mingled with remorse, the sort of pleasure peculiar to those Catholics whom the fear of hell spurs on to commit sin.

— Émile Zola

Her anger was rekindled.' You see, I keep it to myself, but, oh! It's more than I can stand. Don't say anything, sir; don't say anything, or I'll explode!' He said nothing, and she exploded all the same.

— Émile Zola

Her son would be incomparably handsome, good and powerful. He would be the expected Messiah; it is fortunate for humanity that all mothers have this pathetic faith, without it mankind would not have the ever-renascent strength to go on living.

— Émile Zola

He was possessed now with that obsession for the cross in which so many lips have worn themselves away on crucifixes.

— Émile Zola

His remorse was purely physical. Only his body, strained nerves, and cowering flesh were afraid of the drowned man. Conscience played no part in his terrors, and he had not the slightest regret about killing Camille; in his moments of calm, when the specter was not present, he would have committed the murder over again had he thought his interests required it.

— Émile Zola

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.

— Émile Zola