The Awakening Quotes - Page 3 | Just Great DataBase

Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.

I am no longer one of Mr, Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both.

I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.

She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering.

The Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union.

The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing.

He was quite portly, with a profusion of gray hair, and small blue eyes which age had robbed of much of their brightness but none of their penetration.

She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic.

Then the candor of the woman's whole existence, which every one might read, and which formed so striking a contrast to her own habitual reserve—this might have furnished a link. Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’ Whither would you soar?

She was becoming too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it seemed to her like life was passing her by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled.

Mrs. Pontellier gave over being astonished, and concluded that wonders would never cease.

The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days.

But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing.

When Doctor Mandelet dined with the Pontelliers on Thursday he could discern in Mrs. Pontellier no trace of that morbid condition which her husband had reported to him. She was excited and in a manner radiant.

One misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.

She says a wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth.

Conditions would some way adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.

Well, for instance, when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.