Madame Bovary

"The world punishes those who demand too much of it"

"She was a prisoner of her own expectations"

"Knowledge of one's unhappiness does not cure it"

"Adultery seemed the only honest thing left in her life"

"She collected griefs as others collect jewels"

"The soul starves on bread alone, but dies on luxury too"

"Dreams are cruel creditors that demand payment in reality"

"Nature cares nothing for our romantic aspirations"

"She was a masterpiece of self-deception"

"The heart knows no arithmetic, only excess"

"Desperation makes philosophers of us all, briefly"

"She had confused romance with happiness, and paid the price"

"The past haunts us more than any ghost could"

"Beauty fades, but the hunger for it never dies"

"What is marriage but a prolonged farewell to one's former self?"

"She mistook sentiment for strength, weakness for love"

"Lies are the only truth we tell ourselves willingly"

"The provincial life suffocates those born for passion"

"Time moves slowly for those waiting for happiness to arrive"

"Money becomes the only poetry for the desperate"

"She sought in others what she had lost in herself"

"Art cannot fill the void that life leaves empty"

"The monotony of marriage is death by a thousand small betrayals"

"Reality disappoints those who expect too much from it"

"She had read too many novels and too little of life itself"

"Love is but an exchange of fantasies and the rubbing of bodies"

"She felt herself drowning in the banality of existence"

"The heart, like fruit, ripens in darkness"

"Desire had evaporated like water on hot stone"

"She was not happy, and never had been happy"