34 Quotes by Gabriel Chevallier

I had been astonished to find myself in the middle of the war yet not be able to find it, unable to accept that in fact the war consisted precisely of this stasis.

...the schoolmaster was one of those men for whom virtuous indignation was a necessity.

It is something of a tragedy for young girls of good family that they cannot carry on a love-affair in a simple, straightforward way, in secret, below their station if need be, as do their sisters of humbler origin, who can place their affections wherever they wish without risk of misdirecting a family fortune or making a 'bad match'.

At Clochemerle, the greater number of the men put up with their wives, and the great majority of the women with their husbands. If this hardly amounted to adoration, in the majority of homes at any rate the men and women found each other very nearly endurable.

Since the damage was so small, people were more inclined to laugh that Cudoine should have his ugly mug bashed in. No one had any particular grievance against him, but there was a town major's manner about him that was rather irritating. He looked too pleased with himself, and at Clochemerle this was not popular.

The desire for carnal possession quickly cools, whereas the desire to own land never quits the heart of man.

She was one of those women who are usually referred to in the past tense, of whom one says: ‘She had a certain freshness and bloom about her,’ and whose freshness and bloom passed unnoticed even when she still had them.