Valérie Perrin > Quotes

“It’s a luxury to be the owner of one’s time. I think it’s one of the greatest luxuries human beings can afford themselves.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“You're no longer where you were, but you are everywhere that I am.”
― Valérie Perrin, Cambiare l'acqua ai fiori

“You must learn to be generous with your absence to those
who haven’t understood the importance of your presence.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“We think that death is an absence, when in fact it's a secret presence.”
― Valérie Perrin, Cambiare l'acqua ai fiori

“We never meet people by chance. They are destined to cross our paths for a reason.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“As I go to bed, I think how awful it would be to die in the middle of reading a good novel.”
― Valérie Perrin, Cambiare l'acqua ai fiori

“When we miss one person,
everywhere becomes deserted.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“There’s something stronger than death, and that’s the presence of those absent in the memory of the living.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“... you will be everywhere my eyes come to rest. Wherever my heart resides, yours will continue to beat.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“If a flower grew every time I thought of you, the earth would be one massive garden.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Don't judge each day by what you can pick, but by the seeds you sow.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“I often speak of Léonine to others because not speaking of her would be to make her die all over again. Not to speak her name would make the silence win. I live with my memory of her, but I tell no one that she is a memory. I make her live elsewhere. When I’m asked for a photo of her, I show her as”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Imagine you’ve been unable to move for years because your fist is clenched inside a container, and to manage to pull your hand out, to free yourself, you just need to let go of what you’re clutching in your clenched fist . . . You open up your hand, you lose what’s inside it, it falls to the bottom of the container, but you are free.”
― Valérie Perrin, Trois

“We would never be friends. We would remain two lives that brushed against one another every day.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Love is when you meet someone who gives you news about yourself.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“When someone has gone, they’ve gone. Except in the minds of those who remain. And the mind of just one man is much bigger than the universe.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“It’s the words they didn’t say
that make the dead so heavy in their coffins.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Et puis il y a l’été. L’été appartient à tous les souvenirs. Il est intemporel. C’est son odeur qui est la plus tenace. Qui s’accroche aux vêtements. Que l’on cherche toute sa vie. […] L’été appartient à tous les âges. Il n’a ni enfance ni adolescence. L’été est un ange.”
― Valérie Perrin, Trois

“Everything is ephemeral, Violette, we’re merely passing through.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Death begins when no one can dream of you any longer.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“The death of a mother is the first
sorrow one weeps over without her.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Ho due guardaroba, uno lo chiamo 'inverno' e l'altro 'estate', ma non c'entrano le stagioni, c'entrano le circostanze.”
― Valérie Perrin, Changer l'eau des fleurs

“L'edera soffoca gli alberi, Violette, non dimenticare mai di tagliarla, mai. Appena i pensieri ti portano verso le tenebre prendi la cesoia e taglia via la tristezza.”
― Valérie Perrin, Changer l'eau des fleurs

“The book of life is the ultimate book, which we can
neither close nor reopen at will; when we want to return
to the page on which we love, the page on which we die
is already between our fingers.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“The earth conceals you, but my heart still sees you.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“Le persone che vengono a visitare le tombe ogni giorno: quelle sì che sembrano davvero fantasmi, che stanno tra la vita e la morte.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“I like giving life. Sowing, watering, harvesting. And starting again every year. I like life just as it is today. Bathed in sunshine. I like being at the essence of things.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers

“You know, Nina, one thinks something. And then one’s wrong.”
― Valérie Perrin, Three

“Ma grand-mère m’a appris très tôt comment cueillir les étoiles : la nuit il suffit de poser une bassine d’eau au milieu de la cour pour les avoir à ses pieds.”
― Valérie Perrin, Changer l'eau des fleurs

“Death begins when no one can dream of you any longer.” It’s on the grave of a young nurse, Marie Deschamps, who died in 1917. Apparently, it was a soldier who put up this plaque in 1919. Every time I go past it, I wonder whether he dreamt of her for a long time.”
― Valérie Perrin, Fresh Water for Flowers