Top 10 Quotes of 'Balzac'

1

" 'What is the name of this song of yours?' ... Again I was alarmed by the three spots of blood in his left eye... 'Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao,' Luo broke in." (p.5)

2

"Neither Luo nor I could muster any enthusiasm for the work we were forced to do on this mountain with its tortuous path rising ever higher until they vanished into the clouds, paths not wide enough even for a handcart, so that the human body represented the sole means of transport. (p.14)

3

"Her eyes had the gleam of uncut gems, of unpolished metal, which was heightened by the long lashes and the delicate slant of the lids." (p.23)

4

"As I continued with the story, I had the impression that there was something different about the Little Seamtress and I realised that her hair was hanging loose in luxuriant tresses, a wonderful mane cascading over her shoulders." (p.38)

5

"Picture, if you will, a boy of ninetenn, still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me." (p.53)

6

"Ursule's story rang as true as if it had been about my neigbours." (p.53)

7

"[Balzac] touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger, and she was transformed, carried away in a dream." (p.58)

8

"It was all such as long time ago, but one particular image from our stint of re-education is still etched in my memory with extraordinary precision: a red-beaked raven keeping watch as Luo crawled along a narrow track with a yawning chasm on either side." (p.101)

9

"Suddenly, I felt the stirrings of an uncontrollably sadistic impulse, like a volcano about to erupt... I had turned into a sadist - an out-and-out sadist." (p.125)

10

" 'She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price.' " (p.172)