Emile Zola
Emile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'accuse. Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 April 1840
CountryFrance
She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself.
Inability, human incapacity, is the only boundary to an art.
I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.
Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.
Don't go looking at me like that because you'll wear your eyes out.
The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.
Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.
And that wreched creature without hands or feet, who had to be put to bed and fed like a child, that pitiable remnant of a man, whose almost vanished life was nothing more than one scream of pain, cried out in furious indignation: 'What a fool one must be to go and kill oneself!' " - 'Joy of Life
How evil life must be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to heaven!
These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here
I am spending delightful afternoons in my garden, watching everything living around me. As I grow older, I feel everything departing, and I love everything with more passion.
It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live!
In Paris, everything's for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.