Dumas Quotes

“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of the evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius... and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Fernand," cried he, "of my hundred names I need only tell you one, to overwhelm you! But you guess it now do you not? - or, rather, you remember it? For notwithstanding all my sorrows and my tortures, I show you today a face which the happiness of revenge makes young again..”
― Dumas, Alexandre, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I had a chance to read Monte Christo in prison once, too, but not to the end. I observed that while Dumas tries to create a feeling of horror, he portrays the Château d'If as a rather benevolent prison. Not to mention his missing such nice details as the carrying of the latrine bucket from the cell daily, about which Dumas with the ignorance of a free person says nothing. You can figure out why Dantès could escape. For years no one searched the cell, whereas cells are supposed to be searched every week. So the tunnel was not discovered. And then they never changed the guard detail, whereas experience tells us that guards should be changed every two hours so one can check on the other. At the Château d'If they didn't enter the cells and look around for days at a time. They didn't even have any peepholes, so d'If wasn't a prison at all, it was a seaside resort. They even left a metal bowl in the cell, with which Dantès could dig through the floor. Then, finally, they trustingly sewed a dead man up in a bag without burning his flesh with a red-hot iron in the morgue and without running him through with a bayonet at the guardhouse. Dumas ought to have tightened up his premises instead of darkening the atmosphere.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“Des par tous et tous par un.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“Si ha sempre fretta di essere felici, signor Danglars, perchè quando uno ha sofferto a lungo, stenta a credere alla felicità.”
― Alexandre Dumas, Il Conte di Montecristo

“Originally a pupil of Liebig, I became a pupil of Dumas, Gerhardt and Williamson: I no longer belonged to any school.”
― August Kekule

“What remains mysterious, or even enigmatic are those two words "nothing more," "pas davantage" in French.”
― Javier Marías, Los enamoramientos

“He leaned over the dying man and whispered in his ear, ‘I am—‘ And his lips uttered a name so softly that he himself seemed to be afraid to hear it.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“El orgullo de quienes no pueden edificar es destruir.”
― Alexandre Dumas, One Thousand and One Ghosts

“...and though it was three in the morning, and he had to traverse some of the nastiest quarters in Paris, trouble passed him by. Everyone knows that God watches over drunkards and lovers.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“Mercedes vive, signore, e Mercedes ricorda, perché solo lei vi ha riconosciuto quando vi ha visto, e prima ancora di vedervi vi ha riconosciuto dalla voce, Edmond, dal semplice suono della vostra voce; e da allora vi segue passo dopo passo, vi sorveglia, vi teme, e non ha certo avuto bisogno di cercare la mano da cui è partito il colpo che ha abbattuto il signor di Moncerf». «Fernand, volete dire, signora – replicò Montecristo con amara ironia; – poiché state ricordando i nostri nomi, ricordiamoli tutti». E Montecristo aveva pronunciato quel nome, Fernand, con una tale espressione di odio che Mercedes sentì il brivido dello spavento attraversarle tutto il corpo.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“«Fernand! – gridò Montecristo, – dei miei cento nomi non avrei bisogno di dirtene che uno solo per fulminarti; ma questo nome tu lo indovini, non è vero? o piuttosto te lo ricordi? perché malgrado tutte le mie sofferenze, tutte le mie torture, oggi ti mostro un viso ringiovanito dalla felicità della vendetta, un viso che devi aver visto molto spesso in sogno dopo il tuo matrimonio…. con Mercedes, la mia fidanzata!» Il generale, con la testa rovesciata all’indietro, le mani tese, lo sguardo fisso, divorò in silenzio quella terribile visione; poi, trovato un punto d’appoggio sulla parete, scivolò lentamente fino alla porta, dalla quale uscì all’indietro lasciandosi sfuggire questo solo grido lugubre, lamentoso, straziante: «Edmond Dantès!».”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Fino a quel giorno che Dio si degnerà di svelare all'uomo il futuro, tutta la saggezza umana sarà in queste due parole: aspettare e sperare!”
― Alexandre Dumas, Il conte di Montecristo

“Very well,’ said Dantès. ‘Then I, too, shall remain.’ And, standing up and solemnly extending his hand above the old man’s head: ‘I swear by the blood of Christ that I shall not leave you until your death.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“They were sailing under a clear sky in which God too was progressively putting on His lights, each another world.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“The gloomy light, the silence and the awful poetry of night had no doubt combined with the fearful poetry of her conscience: the poisoner was afraid to see her work.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Monte Cristo raised his eyes heavenwards but could not see the heavens: there was a veil of stone between him and the firmament.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“When I asked you if you were consoled, I was speaking to you as a man for whom the human heart holds no secrets. Well, then, Morrel, let us sound the depths of your heart. Is it still that ardent impatience of pain that makes the body leap like a lion bitten by a mosquito? Is it still that raging thirst that can be sated only in the tomb? Is it that ideal notion of regret that launches the living man out of life in pursuit of death? Or is it merely the prostration of exhausted courage, the ennui that stifles the ray of hope as it tries to shine? Is it the loss of memory, bringing an impotence of tears? Oh, my friend, if it is that, if you can no longer weep, if you think your numbed heart is dead, if you have no strength left except in God and no eyes except for heaven – then, my friend, let us put aside words that are too narrow to contain the meanings our soul would give them. Maximilien, you are consoled, pity yourself no longer.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Haydée addressed her with a heartrending expression on her face: ‘How do you expect him to understand me, my sister? He is my master, and I his slave. He has the right to see nothing.’

The count shuddered at the tone of this voice, which awoke the deepest fibres of his being.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I suppose my attitude toward the creative process is much like that of Alexandre Dumas pere when he was approached by a young aspirant who boasted that he was going to write a novel much better than either “The Three Musketeers” or “The Count of Monte Cristo”.
‘Have you an attractive setting?’ the veteran writer asked politely, and the young man replied: ‘The greatest! Ominous islands. Gleaming castles. Wooded glens with gracious mansions.’
‘Have you interesting characters?’
‘Kings and princesses and dubious cardinals.’
‘But have you a logical plot to tie this together?’
‘A most ingenious one. Twists and turns that will bewilder and delight.’
Said Dumas: ‘Young man, you’re in excellent shape. Now all you need are two hundred thousand words, and they’d better be all the right ones.’”
—Chapter IX, “Intellectual Equipment”, pages 311-312”
― James A. Michener, The World Is My Home a Memoir