Quotes from book

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

“When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.”

“You would have imagined her at one moment a maniac, at another a queen.”

“The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.”

“To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. "Why was I not made of stone like thee?”

“His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.”

“‎"Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder. He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul.”

“The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius…”

“A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.”

“He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.”

“There are plenty who regard a wall behind which something is happening as a very curious thing.”

“He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality”

“At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.”

“Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.”

“Spira, spera.

(breathe, hope)”

“… mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.”

“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.”

“If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)”

“One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.”

“The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.”