The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories Quotes

“Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“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.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“I'm a very ordinary man who's worked and fed like everyone else. I'm no longer afraid of dying, but death doesn't seem to want anything to do with me, now that I can see no point in living. I'm afraid he's forgotten me.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“In Paris, everything's for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“It was a peaceful, sunny death, a sleep without end in the calm of the countryside.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“You'd never get Burle to behave decently. When a man sank as low as that, the only thing to do was to throw a spadeful of mud over him and get rid of him like the rotting carcass of some poisonous beast. And even if you shoved his nose in his own shit, he'd only start again the next day and end up stealing a few sous to buy sticks of barley sugar for lice-ridden little beggar-girls.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“The festivity had reached that apogee of joy when you face the happy fate of being crushed to death.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

“I know nothing sadder than a hunchback in love or an ugly woman full of romantic ideals.”
― Émile Zola, The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories