#madame

Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating beneath their costumes. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#characters #fiction #imagination #madame-bovary #reading

Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror- glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple. On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me - my heart seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I despaired. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#lucy-snowe #madame-beck #paul-emmanuel #unmarriageble #villette

The world is full of stupid people. That's why we have rules. But with enough intelligence, a person can be above the rules. She can make rules. ↗

— Daniel Nayeri

#madame-vileroy #rules #intelligence

The smooth folds of her dress concealed a tumultuous heart, and her modest lips told nothing of her torment. She was in love. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#love #madame-bovary #quotes #love

You should wait, William," Miss Frost said. "The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences. ↗

— John Irving

#relationship