“So much loving preparation, so much art and experience put into a pleasure which can last only a moment, and which only a few will ever fully appreciate”
Here, we see a reference to the protagonist's work of making chocolate goodies with all her love, devotion, and diligence. And sometimes her clients show her that her work was not vain, but sometimes people do not appreciate her endeavors. And even in the case with the first ones, the people’s enjoyment of her work isn’t long, it continues just for some moments and then, after they go out of her shop, they forget about this pleasure. The reader, together with Vianne, understands that it often doesn’t matter how much effort and love one holds in one's work, in something they do for others, it may be just a moment of pleasure for them, or even they won’t estimate it in its full size.
“After a while you just have to stop. It's pointless. Hiding behind justifications, setting short-term goals to see out the week. After a while it's the lack of dignity that hurts more than anything else. You need to rest.”
Vianne shows her reaction to her and her daughter’s wandering around the world. She finally understands that she must stop somewhere, make some place a home. Even when she doesn’t really need it, she must do it for her daughter. The same conclusion is reached by many people: to stop wandering in their lives, wasting time for something miserable and fleeting, and to find a place, people, which one can name his/her “home”.
“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”
Vianne shows the true essence of happiness here: it’s fragile, it may change every moment, it is lucid and intricate at the same time. It’s fleeting, and if one manages to catch it, he or she must hold it carefully in their hands. Vianne finds this happiness in some way, but she seems to be afraid of it, she escapes it. And it’s a kind of crux for the reader to explain why it is so.
