Kate Chopin

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

“She liked the dabbling. She felt in it satisfaction of a kind which no other employment afforded her.” (Pg 21)

“But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing.”

(Pg 25)

“At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life – that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” (Pg 27)

“You should have warned me against taking myself seriously. Your advice might then have carried some weight, and given me subject for some reflection.” (Pg 40)

“I wonder if any night on earth will ever again be like this one. It is like a night in a dream. The people about me are like some uncanny, half-human beings. There must be spirits abroad tonight.” (Pg 55)

“No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence.” (Pg 57)

“She could only realize that she herself – her present self – was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect.” (Pg 77)

“She felt that she could not give too much time to a diversion which afforded her the only pleasurable moments that she knew.” (Pg 87)

“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. I can’t make it more clear; its only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.” (Pg 90)

“The way to become rich is to make money, not to save it.” (Pg 101)

“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.” (Pg 103)

“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.” (Pg 109)

“A letter concerns no one but the person who writes it and the one to whom it is written.” (Pg 119)

“She says a wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth.” (Pg 126)

“I leave such ventures to you younger men with the fever of life still in your blood” (Pg 127)

“He did not want the secets of other lives thrust upon him.” (Pg 134)

“After all, it was no great matter to have one’s hand kissed.” (Pg 149)

“Conditions would some way adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.” (Pg 152)

“If I were young and in love with a man, it seems to me he would have to be some grand espirit, a man with lofty aims and ability to reach them; one who stood high enough to attract the notice of his fellow-men. It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.” (Pg 154-155)

“Do you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select? Does she way to herself, ‘Go to! Here is a distinguished statesman with presidential possibilities; I shall proceed to fall in love with him!’” (Pg 155)

“One of these days, I’m going to pull myself together for a while and thing – 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.” (Pg 157)

“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a saf spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.” (Pg 158)

“Oh! To be able to paint in color rather than in words!” (Pg 172)

“I’ve been working like a machine, and feeling like a lost soul.” (Pg 191)

“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.” (Pg 194)

“You know that I only live when I am near you.” (Pg 197)

“I suppose this is what you would call unwomanly; but I have got into a habit of expressing myself. It doesn’t matter to me, and you may think me unwomanly if you like.” (Pg 203)

“Nature takes no account of moral consequences or arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.” (Pg 213)

“Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.” (Pg 213)

“The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies.” (Pg 221)