“She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone save her the impression of moving and living. What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity.”

“A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space.”

“From the moment I told her about my dad, it was as if her whole body sighed in relief. As if someone else’s misery comforted her, made her feel as if she wasn’t alone.”

“Before getting to my mother's house, I would always think of her on the porch or even on the street, sweeping. She had a light way of sweeping, as if removing the dirt were not as important as moving the broom over the ground. Her way of sweeping was symbolic; so airy, so fragile, with a broom she tried to sweep away all the horrors, all the loneliness, all the misery that had accompanied her all her life...”

“All the overpowering blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery.”

“She could slip out of her shoes and leave them right here, stuck in the muck, and then get rid of her dress and everything else: her mind, her life, her pain. The abandon of having nothing to lose, the freedom of being divested of all earthly burdens, ready for the Messiah, or death. Everything is attracted by its end.”