La Bête Humaine

“Don't go looking at me like that because you'll wear your eyes out.””

— Emile Zola

“She was a virgin and a warrior, disdainful of the male, which was what eventually convinced people that she really must be off her head.””

— Emile Zola

“With other women he had not been able to touch their flesh without experiencing the desire to devour it, as though ravenous with an abominable hunger to butcher them. But this one, could he then love her, and not kill her?””

— Emile Zola

“As if one killed by calculation! A person kills only from an impulse that springs from his blood and sinews, from the vestiges of ancient struggles, from the need to live and the joy of being strong.””

— Emile Zola

“la machine ronflait, crachait, comme une bête qu’on surmène, avec des sursauts, des coups de reins, où l’on aurait cru entendre craquer ses membres.””

— Emile Zola

“Once more it vanished, and on it raced, onward and onward into the dark night, bound they knew not where, simply onward. What did it matter what victims it crushed in its path! Was it not, after all, heading into the future, heedless of the blood that was spilled? And on it sped through the darkness, driverless, like some blind, deaf beast turned loose upon the field of death, onward and onward, laden with its freight of cannon-fodder, with these soldiers, already senseless with exhaustion and drink, still singing away.””

— Emile Zola