Quotes by French Authors - Page 134

Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.
Gustave Flaubert
In a way, literature is true than life,' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. And that's why it's false. But it's damned satisfying. In life, you're constantly denying yourself, and others are always contradicting you. On paper, I make time stand still and I impose my convictions on the whole world; they become the only reality.
Simone de Beauvoir
A writer is a world trapped in a person.
Victor Hugo
An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
Gustave Flaubert
I always dream of a pen that would be a syringe.
Jacques Derrida
I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.
Françoise Sagan
Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with landsurveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.
Gilles Deleuze
Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.
Roman Payne
I can elect something I love and absorb myself in it.
Anaïs Nin
But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?
Milan Kundera
I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing.
Anaïs Nin
Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.
André Gide
True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.
Arthur Rimbaud
Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.
André Gide
This diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice.
Anaïs Nin
Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.
Muriel Barbery
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.
Molière
I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.
Alexandre Dumas
If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist.
Charles Baudelaire
Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.", 1964)
Colette
Poems are never finished - just abandoned
Paul Valéry
Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
Jules Renard
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
Voltaire
A book is a suicide postponed.
Emil M. Cioran
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
Anaïs Nin
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.
Albert Camus
The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.
Anaïs Nin
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
Anaïs Nin
Alone: for the first time I understood the terrible significance of that word. Alone without a witness, without anyone to speak to, without refuge. The breath in my body, the blood in my veins, all this hurly-burly in my head existed for nobody.
Simone de Beauvoir
I was too much of an extremist to be able to live under the eye of God and at the same time say both yes and no to life
Simone de Beauvoir
It was easier for me to think of a world without a creator than of a creator burdened with all the contradictions in the world.
Simone de Beauvoir
I never swear, Monseigneur. I say Yes or No, and as I am a gentleman, I keep my word.
Alexandre Dumas
One night I summoned God, if He really existed, to show Himself to me. He didn't, and I never addressed another word to Him. In my heart of hearts I was very glad He didn't exist. I should have hated it if what was going on here below had had to end up in eternity.
Simone de Beauvoir
It is necessary ... to yield to the storm, purchase a peace, and wait patiently for better times.
Alexandre Dumas
Then keep your confidence in the infinite mercy of the Savior. Say, like one mother I know who was distressed by the conduct of her children, 'Jesus, You love them too much not to save them.' Thank Him in advance for the Heaven which He is preparing for them...but, and this is very, very important--while you are suffering, wait in peace for the time of Jesus, the time chosen by Him to grant your request. He will perhaps make you wait a long time, precisely as a proof of your confidence...tell Him whatever your trial, that with His grace nothing will make you lose your profound peace, because you are sure of Him.
Jean C.J. d'Elbée
How can we not ask at every turn, 'What is going to happen? How will this turn out?' The main thing is not to consent consciously to anxiety or a troubled mind. The moment you realize you are worrying, make very quickly an act of confidence: 'No, Jesus, You are there: nothing--nothing--happens, not a hair falls from our heads, without Your permission. I have no right to worry." Perhaps He is sleeping in the boat, but He is there. He is always there. He is all-powerful; nothing escapes His vigilance. He watches over each one of us 'as over the apple of His eye.' He is all love, all tenderness.
Jean C.J. d'Elbée
It is now clear that faith is a singular pledge of paternal love, treasured up for the sons whom he has adopted.
John Calvin
Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.
Simone Weil
Always carry champagne! In victory You deserve it & in defeat You need it!
Napoléon Bonaparte
Την επομένη δεν κουνήθηκα, όλη μέρα αναμασούσα τις σκέψεις μου. Σκεφτόμουν την Ιστορία, με κεφαλαία, και τη δική μου ιστορία, τη δική μας. Αυτοί που γράφουν την πρώτη γνωρίζουν τη δεύτερη; Πώς η μνήμη κάποιων συγκρατεί αυτό που άλλοι έχουν ξεχάσει ή δεν το είδαν ποτέ; Ποιος έχει δίκιο, αυτός που είναι αποφασισμένος να μην εγκαταλείψει στο σκοτάδι το παρελθόν ή αυτός που πετάει στη λήθη ό,τι δεν τον βολεύει; Μήπως, για να ζήσεις, για να συνεχίσεις να ζεις, ίσως πρέπει ν’ αποφασίσεις ότι η πραγματικότητα δεν είναι απολύτως αληθινή ή μήπως πρέπει να επιλέξεις μιαν άλλη πραγματικότητα όταν αυτή που έχεις βιώσει σου είναι δυσβάσταχτη; Άλλωστε αυτό δεν έκανα στο στρατόπεδο; Δεν επέλεξα να ζήσω με την ανάμνηση και την προσδοκία της Εμέλια, πετώντας την καθημερινότητά μου στην εξωπραγματικότητα του εφιάλτη; Μήπως η Ιστορία είναι η μέγιστη αλήθεια υφασμένη από εκατομμύρια ξεχωριστά ψέματα, όπως οι παλιές κουβέρτες που έφτιαχνε η Φεντορίν για να μας θρέψει όταν ήμουν παιδί και φαίνονταν καινούριες και πανέμορφες μέσα στο ουράνιο τόξο των χρωμάτων τους, ενώ αποτελούνταν από κουρέλια, ανομοιογενή σχήματα, μαλλιά αμφίβολης ποιότητας κι άγνωστης προέλευσης;
Philippe Claudel
A man may indeed be an honest man; but the folly of sacrifice, of virginity, of devotedness, of martyrdom, arises only from faith in the folly of the Cross.
Emile Bougaud
When I think of the Crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.
Simone Weil
Вера в себя способна творить такие же чудеса, как вера в Господа Бога.
Honoré de Balzac
To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.
Blaise Pascal
Un sceptique qui adhère à un croyant cela est simple comme la loi des couleurs complémentaires.Ce qui nous manque nous attire.
Victor Hugo
Pain anguish and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say that Heaven always apportions to a man's capability of endurance the anguish with which he afflicts him...Suffering is in proportion to the strength which has been accorded in other words the weak suffer more where the trial is the same than the strong.
Alexandre Dumas
Its as if you think you'd never findReason and the Sacred intertwined
Molière
That faith be analyzable does not necessarily imply a method for getting by without it. . . .
Julia Kristeva
So many things which once had distressed or revolted him — the speeches and pronouncements of the learned, their assertions and their prohibitions, their refusal to allow the universe to move — all seemed to him now merely ridiculous, non-existent, compared with the majestic reality, the flood of energy, which now revealed itself to him: omnipresent, unalterable in its truth, relentless in its development, untouchable in its serenity, maternal and unfailing in its protectiveness.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
He who has not God in himself cannot feel His absence.
Simone Weil
True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.
John Calvin
Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good...
Milan Kundera
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
Michel de Montaigne
The man who was once starved may revenge himself upon the world not by stealing just once, or by stealing only what he needs, but by taking from the world an endless toll in payment of something irreplaceable, which is the lost faith.
Anaïs Nin
If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.
Blaise Pascal
It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"!(Institutio III.2.3)
John Calvin
Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.
Voltaire
Plût au ciel que le lecteur, enhardi et devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’il lit, trouve, sans se désorienter, son chemin abrupt et sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres et pleines de poison ; car, à moins qu'il n’apporte dans sa lecture une logique rigoureuse et une tension d’esprit égale au moins à sa défiance, les émanations mortelles de ce livre imbiberont son âme comme l’eau le sucre. Il n’est pas bon que tout le monde lise les pages qui vont suivre ; quelques-uns seuls savoureront ce fruit amer sans danger. Par conséquent, âme timide, avant de pénétrer plus loin dans de pareilles landes inexplorées, dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant. Écoute bien ce que je te dis : dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant.
Comte de Lautréamont
victor hugo, Les Contemplations, MorsJe vis cette faucheuse. Elle était dans son champ. Elle allait à grands pas moissonnant et fauchant, Noir squelette laissant passer le crépuscule. Dans l'ombre où l'on dirait que tout tremble et recule, L'homme suivait des yeux les lueurs de la faulx.Et les triomphateurs sous les arcs triomphaux Tombaient ; elle changeait en désert Babylone, Le trône en échafaud et l'échafaud en trône, Les roses en fumier, les enfants en oiseaux,L'or en cendre, et les yeux des mères en ruisseaux. Et les femmes criaient : - Rends-nous ce petit être. Pour le faire mourir, pourquoi l'avoir fait naître ? -Ce n'était qu'un sanglot sur terre, en haut, en bas ; Des mains aux doigts osseux sortaient des noirs grabats ; Un vent froid bruissait dans les linceuls sans nombre ; Les peuples éperdus semblaient sous la faulx sombre Un troupeau frissonnant qui dans l'ombre s'enfuit ; Tout était sous ses pieds deuil, épouvante et nuit.Derrière elle, le front baigné de douces flammes, Un ange souriant portait la gerbe d'âmes.
Victor Hugo