Madame Bovary Quotes

  • Emma Bovary: I realized that before getting married I was contemplating my coming life like a child. In a theater, um... sitting there in high spirits, and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It was a blessing in my early youth that I did not know what was really going to happen. When I look back now, it seems that I was like an innocent prisoner, condemned not to death, but to life, and as-yet unconscious of what the sentence meant. And the longer I live, the more clearly I feel that on a whole, life's a disappointment.

  • Monsieur Lheureux: This is going to be very expensive.

    Emma Bovary: You will extend me credit, will you not?

    Monsieur Lheureux: [slides fabric swatches toward her] Money should never be the problem - only the solution.

  • Monsieur Lheureux: Each moment you don't possess what you love is a moment not spent in love. And a heart without love is a heart without a voice. No song, no life.

  • Emma Bovary: I will not remain inert, standing in a fever of despair.

    The Marquis: My dear Emma, you are unrelenting, standing under an apple tree, wishing to smell the scent of orange blossoms. So yes, you are indeed standing in a lost world of illusion. You like to hear the words, but you have no courage to act upon your feelings.