Kate Chopin

“She could only ache and burn and be still. It was a torture.”

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

“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”

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

“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.”

“The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies.”

“It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day.”

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

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

“Story-writing is telling.”

“She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended.”

“The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed.”

“It was the first kiss of her life to be bereft of hope.”

“She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility.”

“Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself.”