Émile Zola

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud."

"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation."

"Dreyfus is innocent. I swear it! I stake my life on it — my honor! At this solemn moment, in the presence of this tribunal which is the representative of human justice, before you, gentlemen of the ju…"

"Paris flared — Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice."

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!"

"Existence is so bitter for every one of us! Ought we not forgive others much, my friend, if we wish to be forgiven ourselves?"

"There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman."

"Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nat…"