Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant Quotes

“But I no longer had a taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, any ambition, or any hope.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Some people are Freethinkers from sheer stupidity. My Uncle Sosthenes was one of these. Some people are often religious for the same reason.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt."

[As quoted in Pol Neveux's introduction, Guy De Maupassant: A Study]”
― Guy de Maupassant, Original Short Stories — Volume 02

“Is it not rather the touch of Love, of Love the Mysterious, who seeks constantly to unite two beings, who tries his strength the instant he has put a man and a woman face to face?”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield where bullets are raining.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“The inhabitants, in their darkened rooms, were possessed by that terror which follows in the wake of cataclysms, of deadly upheavals of the earth, against which all human skill and strength are vain. For the same thing happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and engulfing in its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead oxen and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with glory, murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the rest, pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to the thunder of cannon—all these are appalling scourges, which destroy all belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught to feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“The woman, who belonged to the courtesan class, was celebrated for an embonpoint unusual for her age, which had earned for her the sobriquet of "Boule de Suif" (Tallow Ball). Short and round, fat as a pig, with puffy fingers constricted at the joints, looking like rows of short sausages; with a shiny, tightly-stretched skin and an enormous bust filling out the bodice of her dress, she was yet attractive and much sought after, owing to her fresh and pleasing appearance. Her face was like a crimson apple, a peony-bud just bursting into bloom; she had two magnificent dark eyes, fringed with thick, heavy lashes, which cast a shadow into their depths; her mouth was small, ripe, kissable, and was furnished with the tiniest of white teeth.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Monsieur, beware of love! It is lying in ambush everywhere; it is watching for you at every corner; all its snares are laid, all its weapons are sharpened, all its guiles are prepared! Beware of love! Beware of love! It is more dangerous than brandy, bronchitis or pleurisy! It never forgives and makes everybody commit irreparable follies.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Ah! Those silly songs make us lose our heads; and, believe me, never marry a woman who sings in the country, especially if she sings the song of Musette!”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Several sailors, sheltered behind the curved bottoms of their boats, were watching this battle of the sky and the sea.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Then, one by one, they went away, for night was falling on the storm, wrapping in shadows the raging ocean and all the battling elements.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“Death need not be sad, it should be a matter of indifference.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“I should add, however, by way of justification of French politeness, that our fellow-countrymen are, when travelling, models of good manners in comparison with the abominable English, who seem to have been brought up in a stable, so careful are they not to discommode themselves in any way, while they always discommode their neighbors.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“The father was long and thin, with a red face framed in white whiskers, and looking like a living sandwich, a piece of ham carved like a face between two wads of hair.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“And each day a friendly intercourse was established between the working-women of the pavement and the idlers of the boarding school.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

“And he wrote a long letter, tenderly affectionate, full of phrases and circumlocutions, metaphors and similes, philosophy and academic gallantry; and I took on myself the responsibility of delivering it to the young woman.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant