226 Quotes by Kate Chopin

A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her, – the light which, showing the way, forbids it.

He observed his hostess attentively from under his shaggy brows, and noted a subtle change which had transformed her from the listless woman he had known into a being who, for the moment, seemed palpitant with the forces of life. Her speech was warm and energetic. There was no repression in her glance or gesture. She reminded him of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.

He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain – no matter what – after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods.

The years that are gone seem like dreams – if one might go on sleeping and dreaming – but to wake up and find – Oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up, after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.

There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to “feed upon opinion” when her own soul had invited her.

The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies.

They had been permitted to sit up till after the ice-cream, which naturally marked the limit of human indulgence.

Don’t stir all the warmth out of your coffee; drink it.

But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.