Victor Hugo

"Ah," cried Gavroche, "what does this mean? It rains again! Good God, if this continues, I withdraw my subscription."

"Pardon me, monsieur," answered M. Leblanc, with a tone of politeness which, at such a moment, had a peculiarly strange and powerful effect, "I see that you are a bandit."

You speak now like a brave man and an honest man. Courage does not fear crime, and honesty does not fear authority.

When Jondrette had said: My name is Thenardier , Marius had trembled in every limb, and supported himself against the wall as if he had felt the chill of a sword-blade through his heart.

The most terrible of motives and the most unanswerable of responses: Because.

Desiring always to be in mourning, he clothed himself with night.

A fire would cause a dawn, undoubtedly, but why not wait for the break of day?

At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good.

One evening little Gavroche had had no dinner; he remembered that he had had no dinner also the day before; this was becoming tiresome. He resolved that he would try for some supper.

Those are rare who fall without becoming degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Misérables.

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the hearts of men by this double light, has seen nothing, and know nothing of the truth.

What can be done in a sepulcher, they agonised, and what can be done in a hell, they sang. For where there is no more hope, song remains.