Top 160 Kate Chopin Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of the joy that kills.”

— Kate Chopin

52. “She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom.”

— Kate Chopin

53. “She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality. But among the conflicting sensations which assailed her, there was neither shame nor remorse. There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.”

— Kate Chopin

54. “Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul. The physical need for sleep began to overtake her; the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in.”

— Kate Chopin

55. “She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.”

— Kate Chopin

56. “The city atmosphere certainly has improved her. Some way she doesn’t seem like the same woman.”

— Kate Chopin

57. “It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and deceived by fresh promises which her youth had held out to her.”

— Kate Chopin

58. “She heard him moving about the room; every sound indicating impatience and irritation. Another time she would have gone in at his request. She would, through habit, have yielded to his desire; not with any sense of submission or obedience to his compelling wishes, but unthinkingly, as we walk, move, sit, stand, go through the daily treadmill of the life which has been portioned out to us.”

— Kate Chopin

59. “Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate.”

— Kate Chopin

60. “As the devoted wife of a man that worshiped her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality, closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams.”

— Kate Chopin

61. “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”

— Kate Chopin

62. “She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle, -a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life’s delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by “life’s delirium.” It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.”

— Kate Chopin

63. “The morning was full of sunlight and hope.”

— Kate Chopin

64. “He observed his hostess attentively from under his shaggy brows, and noted a subtle change which had transformed her from the listless woman he had known into a being who, for the moment, seemed palpitant with the forces of life. Her speech was warm and energetic. There was no repression in her glance or gesture. She reminded him of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.”

— Kate Chopin

65. “She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them.”

— Kate Chopin

66. “The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days.”

— Kate Chopin

67. “I am no longer one of Mr, Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, ‘Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at you both.”

— Kate Chopin

68. “An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul’s summer day.”

— Kate Chopin

69. “She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic.”

— Kate Chopin

70. “She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.”

— Kate Chopin

71. “One misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.”

— Kate Chopin

72. “As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.”

— Kate Chopin

73. “She answered her husband with friendly evasiveness – not with any fixed design to mislead him, only because all sense of reality had gone out of her life; she had abandoned herself to Fate, and awaited the consequences with indifference.”

— Kate Chopin

74. “There was something in her attitude, in her whole appearance when she leaned her head against the high-backed chair and spread her arms, which suggested the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone.”

— Kate Chopin

75. “And the ladies, selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she knew of none better.”

— Kate Chopin

76. “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.”

— Kate Chopin

77. “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own, and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they concerned no one but herself.”

— Kate Chopin

78. “She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.”

— Kate Chopin

79. “The lovers were just entering the grounds of the pension. They were leaning toward each other as the water oaks bent from the sea. There was not a particle of earth beneath their feet. Their heads might have been turned upside down, so absolutely did they tread upon blue ether.”

— Kate Chopin

80. “The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant.”

— Kate Chopin

81. “It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a flaming torch that kindled desire.”

— Kate Chopin

82. “No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.”

— Kate Chopin

83. “She grew fond of her husband, realizing with some unaccountable satisfaction that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth colored her affection, thereby threatening its dissolution.”

— Kate Chopin

84. “Don’t stir all the warmth out of your coffee; drink it.”

— Kate Chopin

85. “I’ve been working like a machine, and feeling like a lost soul.”

— Kate Chopin

86. “But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.”

— Kate Chopin

87. “She had resolved to never take another step backward.”

— Kate Chopin

88. “She let her mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself – her present self – was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect.”

— Kate Chopin

89. “Mrs. Pontellier was not a woman given to confidences, a characteristic hitherto contrary to her nature. Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life – that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.”

— Kate Chopin

90. “There was no one thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too, and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone.”

— Kate Chopin

91. “A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: “Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That’s all right!” He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence.”

— Kate Chopin

92. “I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence.”

— Kate Chopin

93. “Sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again, idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided.”

— Kate Chopin

94. “If I were young and in love with a man,” said Mademoiselle, turning on the stool and pressing her wiry hands between her knees as she looked down at Edna, who sat on the floor holding the letter, “it seems to me he would have to be some grand esprit; a man with lofty aims and ability to reach them; one who stood high enough to attract the notice of his fellow-men. It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.”

— Kate Chopin

95. “She was becoming herself, casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment.”

— Kate Chopin

96. “Robert’s going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything. The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing.”

— Kate Chopin

97. “The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant, was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded.”

— Kate Chopin

98. “The delicous breath of rain was in the air.”

— Kate Chopin

99. “It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul’s summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood.”

— Kate Chopin

100. “The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing.”

— Kate Chopin