Kate Chopin famous quotes

Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.
-- Kate Chopin

#Suffering #Wake Up #Dupes

I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe?
-- Kate Chopin

#Wind #Tree #Earth

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
-- Kate Chopin

#Ocean #Voice #Sea

The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies
-- Kate Chopin

#Artist #Soul #Courageous

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.
-- Kate Chopin

#Healing #Sea #Voice

The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.
-- Kate Chopin

#Summer #Mother #Husband

but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.
-- Kate Chopin

#Inspirational Life

She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.
-- Kate Chopin

#Wanted

There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.
-- Kate Chopin

#Memorable #Water #People

He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.
-- Kate Chopin

#Self #World #Casting

I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldnt give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.
-- Kate Chopin

#Children #Giving Up #Revealing

Have you ever heard the earth breath?
-- Kate Chopin

#Clever #Earth #Heard

But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!
-- Kate Chopin

#Tangled #Soul #World

It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and deceived by fresh promises which her youth had held out to her.
-- Kate Chopin

#Broken #Leaving #Promise

The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.
-- Kate Chopin

#Voice #Sea #Seductive

A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled, down, down to the water
-- Kate Chopin

#Air #Wings #Broken

There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.
-- Kate Chopin

#Regret #Kissing #Dull

We shall be everything to each other. Nothing else shall be of any consequence.
-- Kate Chopin

#Consequence

There are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me. But I don't want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others-
-- Kate Chopin

#Heart #Suffering #Way

No, I only think you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it.
-- Kate Chopin

#Healing #Thinking #Pleasure

It is greater than the stars - that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon.
-- Kate Chopin

#Stars #Moving #Energy

And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.
-- Kate Chopin

#Arbitrary #Cost #Moral

Do you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select? Does she say to herself, 'Go to! here is a distinguished statesman with presidential possibilities; I shall proceed to fall in love with him.' or, 'I shall set my heart upon this musician, whose fame is on every tongue?' or 'this financier, who controls the world's money markets?'
-- Kate Chopin

#Falling In Love #Heart #Presidential

Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her. "Good-by--because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone. She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again.
-- Kate Chopin

#Distance #Love You #Doctors

She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.
-- Kate Chopin

#Sky #Space #Water

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.
-- Kate Chopin

#Strong #Wings #Bird

The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant.
-- Kate Chopin

#Past #Lessons #Mystery

But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
-- Kate Chopin

#Sea #Voice #Seductive

The city atmosphere certainly has improved her. Some way she doesn't seem like the same woman.
-- Kate Chopin

#Cities #Atmosphere #Way

The delicous breath of rain was in the air.
-- Kate Chopin

#Rain #Air

She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.
-- Kate Chopin

#Shining #Missing #Literature

To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist much possess the courageous soul.
-- Kate Chopin

#Artist #Effort #Soul

I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.
-- Kate Chopin

#Children #Giving Up #Giving

Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.
-- Kate Chopin

#Strong #Wings #Today

I dance with people I despise; amuse myself with men whose only talent lies in their feet, gain the disapprobation of people I honor and respect; return home at day break with my brain in a state which was never intended for it; and arise in the middle of the next day feeling infinitely more, in spirit and flesh like a Liliputian, than a woman with body and soul. Entry (when she was eighteen) in her Commonplace Book, 1868-1869.
-- Kate Chopin

#Lying #Book #Home

She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. (last lines)
-- Kate Chopin

#Dog #Distance #Father

You have been a very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontelliere's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both.
-- Kate Chopin

#Dream #Boys #Laughing

She was moved by a kind of commiseration... a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium.
-- Kate Chopin

#Soul #Contentment #Taste

There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistance with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
-- Kate Chopin

#Powerful #Believe #Men

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.
-- Kate Chopin

#Depression #Sorry #Struggle

The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached.
-- Kate Chopin

#Passion #Flames #White

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.
-- Kate Chopin

#Clever #Eye #Kissing

So the storm passed and every one was happy.
-- Kate Chopin

#Storm

In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.
-- Kate Chopin

#Crush #Hands #Feet

I would give up my life for my children, but not myself.
-- Kate Chopin

#Children #Giving Up #Self

The way to become rich is to make money, not to save it.
-- Kate Chopin

#Way #Making Money #Rich

A wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth.
-- Kate Chopin

#Earth #Spectacles

I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think-try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it.
-- Kate Chopin

#Sex #Character #Thinking

I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.
-- Kate Chopin

#Editors #Giving #Secret

Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme caution in dealing with the Mexicans, who, she considered, were a treacherous people, unscrupulous and revengeful. She trusted she did them no injustice in thus condemning them as a race. She had known personally but one Mexican, who made and sold excellent tamales, and whom she would have trusted implicitly, so soft-spoken was he. One day he was arrested for stabbing his wife. She never knew whether he had been hanged or not.
-- Kate Chopin

#Exercise #Race #People

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.
-- Kate Chopin

#Matter #Lace #Painting

Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace.
-- Kate Chopin

#People #Mad #Personality

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.
-- Kate Chopin

#Fire #Light #Doors

The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like a benediction.
-- Kate Chopin

#Spring #Earth #Benediction

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recongize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight - perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.
-- Kate Chopin

#Eight #Soul #World

one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul
-- Kate Chopin

#Dream #Reality #Soul

She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women.
-- Kate Chopin

#Rights #Notion

…there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.
-- Kate Chopin

#Powerful #Believe #Men

There was no despondency when she fell asleep that night; nor was there hope when she awoke in the morning.
-- Kate Chopin

#Morning #Night #Despondency

Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.
-- Kate Chopin

#Love #Sympathy #Dream

She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.
-- Kate Chopin

#Personality #Special #Peculiar

I'm tired," she uttered complainingly. "I know you are." "You don't know anything about it. Why should you know? I never was so exhausted in my life. But it isn't unpleasant. A thousand emotions have swept through me to-night. I don't comprehend half on them. Don't mind what I'm saying; I am just thinking aloud.
-- Kate Chopin

#Tired #Thinking #Night

Even as a child she had lived her own small life within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.
-- Kate Chopin

#Children #Inward #Small Life

Why?" asked her companion. "Why do you love him when you ought not to?" Edna, with a motion or two, dragged herself on her knees before Mademoiselle Reisz, who took the glowing face between her two hands. "Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth. Because - " "Because you do, in short," laughed Mademoiselle.
-- Kate Chopin

#Baseball #Eye #Hands

She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom.
-- Kate Chopin

#Wine #Voice #Sound

Goodbye -- Because I love you.
-- Kate Chopin

#Goodbye #Love You

I don't mind walking. I always feel so sorry for women who don't like to walk; they miss so much--so many rare little glimpses of life; and we women learn so little of life on the whole.
-- Kate Chopin

#Sorry #Missing #Mind

Does he write to you? Never a line. Does he send you a message? Never a word. It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or to belong to him.
-- Kate Chopin

#Love You #Writing #Trying

She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves… They belonged to her her and were her own, and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and they they concerned no one but herself.
-- Kate Chopin

#Long #Emotion #Conviction

A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,—the light which, showing the way, forbids it.
-- Kate Chopin

#Light #Dawn #Way