'Now it just seems like, really, that's what you did?'

'Most writers of fiction are interested in anonymity.'

'In this room he felt the chalky atmosphere of the classroom again, the same sort of chair, the same boredom.'

The first speech Flaubert actually quotes in the narration of Sentimental Education, after Moreau and Arnoux have already had quite a conversation, its contents reported in the narrator's summary, is still not even quite quoted:

But he broke off to observe the ship's funnel and muttered a lengthy, rapid calculation, to work out 'how often each piston, at so many strokes per minute, would have to etc.'—and, once he had arrived at an answer, he talked about the beauties of the landscape.

Funny.

'By protecting her privacy, Ferrante protected ours.'

'Things do not care about us: they do not try to influence us, penetrate within us, or trouble us. Besides, "they know nothing about themselves and affirm nothing about themselves." It is rather we who are concerned about things, who try to get to know them, and who are worried about them. It is human beings who, thanks to their freedom, introduce trouble and worry into the world. Taken by themselves, things are neither good nor evil, and should not trouble us. The course of things unfolds in a necessary way, without choice, without hesitation, and without passion.'

Walking.

A bug hit me in the face.

Then another one, and another one.

They were in a caravan.

For the ear alone

'Habermas left students with the impression that he "is not a charismatic figure."'