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Quotes by French Authors
"You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose."
"I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself."
"Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make."
"There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death."
"It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all."
"I wanted to make a film about stupid people that was very vulgar and deeply stupid. From that moment on I can hardly be reproached for making a film that is about stupid people."
"I came from a wealthy family. I made over my share of the estate to various charities."
"You believe in God, then you don't believe anymore and when you have a big problem, you pray anyway."
"They place great stress on the clarity of our language for expressing nuances and showing subtleties."
"I have been further enlightened by the conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whom I would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger."
"Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon."
"What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error."
"I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not."
"Men should only believe half of what women say. But which half?"
"The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world."
"Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it."
"Only the knife knows what goes on in the heart of a pumpkin."
"The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear."
"Living is more a question of what one spends than what one makes."
"Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched."
"The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits."
"That's easy to answer: I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film."
"She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage."
"In the life of a singer, it's not all triumphs and happy memories; there are days you have to go out there when it's the last thing you feel like doing."
"I was not willing to give up because I was born to like taking risks and that is my way of life."
"Blessed are the blind, for they know not enough to ask why."
"Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman."
"To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe."
"But it is true that sometimes an enveloping darkness aids one to clearer vision; as in a panorama building, for example, where the obscurity about the entrance prepares one better for the climax, and gives the scene depicted a more real and vivid appearance."
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