Madame Bovary
CRITIQUE | QUOTES
First editionFirst publication
1867
Literary form
Novel
Genres
Literary
Writing language
French
Author's country
France
Length
Approx. 130,000 words
Notable lines
We were in study-hall when the headmaster entered, followed by a new boy not yet in school uniform and by the handyman carrying a large desk.
— First line
There isn't a bourgeois alive who in the ferment of youth, if only for a day or for a minute, hasn't thought himself capable of boundless passions and noble exploits. The sorriest little woman-chaser has dreamed of Oriental queens; in a corner of every notary's heart lie the moldy remains of a poet.
In her longing she made no difference between the pleasures of luxury and the joys of the heart, between elegant living and sensitive feeling.
...for none of us can ever express the exact human measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
— Last line
CRITIQUE | QUOTES
