Novel

Explore 898 quotes from the following medium: Novel

He took it for granted that she was content; and she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness she herself brought him.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

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Topic

Relationship challenges Relationships

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Madame Bovary

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1856 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Moeurs de Province [Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners]. Revue de Paris, 1 Oct. 1856 - 15 Dec. 1856. Serial.

Current Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary, edited and translated by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics, 2011, pt. 1, ch. 7.

When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things

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Topic

Hurting others

Speaker

Ammu

Author

Arundhati Roy

Source

The God of Small Things

Medium

Novel

Genre

Post-colonial literature

Language

English

Time

1997 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Random House, 1997, ch. 1.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Topic

Lost youth Youth Slovenliness

Speaker

Lord Henry "Harry" Wotton

Author

Oscar Wilde

Source

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Medium

Novel Magazine

Statement Type

Misdirection

Language

English

Time

1890 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wilde, Oscar. "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Philadelphia, July 1890, ch. 12.

Current Citation

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray, edited by Robert Mighall. Penguin Classics, 2003, ch. 19.

What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face.

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

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Topic

Perspective

Author

Margaret Atwood

Source

The Handmaid's Tale

Medium

Novel

Genre

Dystopian fiction

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. McClelland and Stewart/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985, ch. 24.

It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes.

Joseph Conrad

More information about this quote

Topic

Mistakes

Author

Joseph Conrad

Source

An Outcast of the Islands

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1896 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Conrad, Joseph. An Outcast of the Islands. D. Appleton and Company, 1896, pt. 3, ch. 2.

Current Citation

Conrad, Joseph. An Outcast of the Islands. Penguin Modern Classics, 1975, pt. 3, ch. 2.

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

Willa Cather

Death Comes for the Archbishop

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Topic

Miracles Love

Speaker

Father Vaillant

Author

Willa Cather

Source

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Cather, Willa. Death Comes for the Archbishop. Alfred A. Knopf, 1927, bk. 1, ch. 4.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time

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Topic

Happiness Grief Personal growth

Author

Marcel Proust

Source

Time Regained In Search of Lost Time

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Language

French

Time

1922 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score

Original Citation

Proust, Marcel. Le Temps retrouvé [Time Regained]. Paris: Gallimard, 1927.

Current Citation

Proust, Marcel. Finding Time Again, edited and translated by Ian Patterson. Penguin Classics, 2023.

Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.

George Eliot

Adam Bede

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Topic

Inflection points Overcoming adversity Adversity Suffering

Author

George Eliot

Source

Adam Bede

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1859 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Edinburgh/London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1859, ch. 42.

Current Citation

Eliot, George. Adam Bede, edited by Carol A. Martin. Oxford University Press, 2008, ch. 42.

A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.

Honoré de Balzac

La Comédie humaine

More information about this quote

Topic

Eloquence Dishonesty

Author

Honoré de Balzac

Source

Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées La Comédie humaine

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1842 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

De Balzac, Honoré. "Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées [Memoirs of Two Brides]." Scènes de la vie privée. Paris: Fume, 1842.

Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

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Topic

Advice

Speaker

Gildor

Author

J.R.R. Tolkien

Source

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Medium

Novel

Genre

Fantasy

Language

English

Time

1954 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. George Allen & Unwin, 1954, ch. 3.

The folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can!... Five dull hours in another man's house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow... Four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.

Jane Austen

Emma

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Topic

Parties Introversion Misanthropy

Speaker

John Knightley

Author

Jane Austen

Source

Emma

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1816 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Austen, Jane. Emma. Vol. 1, London: John Murray, 1816, ch. 13.

Current Citation

Austen, Jane. Emma, edited by Fiona Stafford. Penguin Classics, 2003, ch. 13.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.

Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Topic

Effects of time Sin

Speaker

Basil Hallward

Author

Oscar Wilde

Source

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Medium

Novel Magazine

Language

English

Time

1890 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wilde, Oscar. "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Philadelphia, July 1890, ch. 10.

Current Citation

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray, edited by Robert Mighall. Penguin Classics, 2003, ch. 12.

We do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind.

George Eliot

Middlemarch

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Topic

What is taken for granted The ordinary and mundane

Author

George Eliot

Source

Middlemarch

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1872 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Eliot, George. Middlemarch. William Edinburgh/London: Blackwood and Sons, 1871–1872, bk. 2, ch. 20.

Current Citation

Eliot, George. Middlemarch, edited by Rosemary Ashton. Penguin Classics, 2003, bk. 2, ch. 20.

By comparison with that existing today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested in what their subjects were thinking.

George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Topic

Tyranny Totalitarianism

Author

George Orwell

Source

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Medium

Novel

Genre

Dystopian fiction

Language

English

Time

1949 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker & Warburg, 1949, pt. 2, ch. 9.

If you expect nothing from somebody, you are never disappointed.

Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar

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Topic

Low expectations Expectations

Author

Sylvia Plath

Source

The Bell Jar

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Plath, Sylvia [published as Victoria Lucas]. The Bell Jar. William Heinemann, 1963.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind-wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

Toni Morrison

Beloved

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Topic

Loneliness

Author

Toni Morrison

Source

Beloved

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1987 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

If triangles were to make to themselves gods, they would give them three sides.

Montesquieu

Persian Letters

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Topic

Nature of God God and man God

Author

Montesquieu

Source

Persian Letters

Medium

Novel

Genre

Epistolary novel

Language

French

Time

1721 1720s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Montesquieu. Rica to Uzbek. 14th of the moon of Saphar, 1714.

And you’ll miss me more as the narrowing weeks wing by.

James Joyce

Finnegans Wake

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Topic

Missing someone

Author

James Joyce

Source

Finnegans Wake

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Language

English

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Faber and Faber, 1939.

Current Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Wordsworth, 2012.

First we feel. Then we fall.

James Joyce

Finnegans Wake

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Author

James Joyce

Source

Finnegans Wake

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Language

English

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Faber and Faber, 1939.

Current Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Wordsworth, 2012.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea

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Topic

Making the most

Author

Ernest Hemingway

Source

The Old Man and the Sea

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1952 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.