Raymond Queneau > Quotes

“Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.”
― Raymond Queneau, Zazie in the Metro

“He sought an adventure but didn't find one. He was inexperienced and besides he didn't have too much imagination.”
― Raymond Queneau

“La vie? Un rien l'amène, un rien l'anime, un rien la mine, un rien l'emmène.”
― Raymond Queneau

“True stories deal with hunger, imaginary ones with love.”
― Raymond Queneau

“I don't know how long I stayed in that particular place my poor memory is not a chronometer nor a movie camera nor a phonograph nor any other sort of finely tuned machine. It's more like nature with holes empty spaces hidden nooks and crannies with rivers that trickle away so that you can never dip your foot in the same water twice and with patches of light and darkness.”
― Raymond Queneau (Author)

“The world is not what it seems—but it isn't anything else, either.”
― Raymond Queneau

“When one made love to zero
spheres embraced their arches
and prime numbers caught their breath...”
― Raymond Queneau, Pounding the Pavements, Beating the Bushes and Other Pataphysical Poems

“His thoughts were hemmed in. One can only draw curved lines on the terrestrial sphere which, as they extend, forever meet with themselves. At such intersections we always encounter what we have already seen.”
― Raymond Queneau

“The really inspired person is never inspired: he's always inspired: he doesn't go looking for inspiration and he doesn't get up in arms about artistic technique.”
― Raymond Queneau, Odile

“As the saying goes: time is money- so give me some money to think.”
― Raymond Queneau, The Flight of Icarus

“Rules cease to exist once they have outlived their value, but forms live on eternally. There are forms of the novel which impose on the suggested topic all the virtues of the Number. Born of the very expression and of the diverse aspects of the tale, connected by nature with the guiding idea, daughter and mother of all the elements that it polarizes, a structure develops, which transmits to the works the last reflections of Universal Light and the last echoes of the Harmony of Worlds.”
― Raymond Queneau

“I’ll pun him so many puns that even his arrogance will finally be expunged.”
― Raymond Queneau, The Blue Flowers

“We have come from all the countries of the world and are going to Saintes-Maries de la Mer. Nomads of the enigma, we gather there each year after having carried our mystery through ordinary countryside and fluid towns. Since we become transformed by our wanderings we are despised by those who stand still and retain a memory of giant serpents and metallic green.”
― Raymond Queneau

“He wanted to be content with an identity nicely chopped into pieces of varying lengths, but whose character was always similar, without dyeing it in autumnal colors, drenching it in April showers or mottling it with the instability of clouds.”
― Raymond Queneau

“When you have a past, Vovonne, you'll realize what an odd thing it is. In the first place, there's whole chunks of it that have caved in: absolutely nothing left. Elsewhere, there's weeds that've grown haphazard, and you can't recognize anything there either. And then there's places that you think are so beautiful that you give them a fresh coat of paint every year, sometimes in one color, sometimes in another, and they end up not looking in the least like what they were. Not counting the things we thought very simple and unmysterious when they happened, but which years later we discover aren't so obvious, like sometimes you pass a thing every day and don't notice it and then all of a sudden you see it.”
― Raymond Queneau, Pierrot Mon Ami

“One must see everything.”
― Raymond Queneau

“Toute grande oeuvre est soit une Iliade soit une Odysée, les odysées étant beaucoup plus nombreuse que les iliades: le Satiricon, La Divine Comédie, Pantagruel, Don Quichotte, et naturellement Ulysse (où l'on reconnaît d'ailleurs l'influence directe de Bouvard et Pécuchet) sont des odysées, c'est-à-dire des récits de temps pleins. Les iliades sont au contraire des recherches du temps perdu: devant Troie, sur une île déserte ou chez les Guermantes.”
― Raymond Queneau

“The poet is never inspired, because he is the master of that which appears to others as inspiration. He does not wait for inspiration to fall out of the heavens like roasted ortolans. He knows how to hunt...He is never inspired because he is unceasingly inspired, because the powers of poetry are always at his disposition, subjected to his will, submissive to his own activity...”
― Raymond Queneau

“The only advantage he could see in the change was that he had a small desk in his room; his capacity for isolation was thereby increased. But none of this changed his life very much. He continued his games of billiards and his reading. And was periodically overwhelmed by abominable fits of despair from which he was abruptly extricated by a ridiculous but stubborn optimism, an absurd love of life.”
― Raymond Queneau, The Last Days

“Why," he was saying, "why should one not tolerate this life, since so little suffices to deprive one of it? So little brings it into being, so little brightens it, so little blights it, so little bears it away. Otherwise, who would tolerate the blows of fate and the humiliations of a successful career, the swindling of grocers, the prices of butchers, the water of milkmen, the irritation of parents, the fury of teachers, the bawling of sergeant-majors, the turpitude of the beasts, the lamentations of the dead-beats, the silence of infinite space, the smell of cauliflower or the passivity of the wooden horses on a merry-g0-round, were it not for his knowledge that the bad and proliferative behaviour of certain minute cells (gesture) or the trajectory of a bullet traced by an involuntary, irresponsible, anonymous individual might unexpectedly come and cause all these cares to evaporate into the blue heavens.”
― Raymond Queneau, Zazie in the Metro

“Spiders’ teeth are not so long as a torment that cannot be avowed.”
― Raymond Queneau

“ВИСОКОПАРНО

Точно когато слънчевата роза пищно аленееше, влетях като стрела в един автобус с източена снага и топли очи на кошута, който лъкатушеше по южната линия. С нюх на индианец, поел по бойната пътека, долових присъствието на един младеж, чийто врат беше по-долъг отколкото на бързоног жираф, а меката му шапка бе украсена с плитчица, подобаваща на герой от упражнения по стил. Като из сажденото лоно от вонящата му на нищожно количество паста за зъби уста избликна раздорът – изригна, за да развихри пагубния си вирус между младежът с врат на жираф и плитчица около шапката и един пътник, плах и невзрачен на вид. Първият се обърна към втория със следните слова: “Кажете ми, зли човече, нима не личи по всичко, че нарочно ме настъпвате?” Изричайки тези думи жирафошиестият младеж се устреми да седне.

По-късно, сред внушителната шир на площад Ром, отново съзрях младежа с врат на жираф и плитчица около шапката, придружен от свой другар, сведущ по мъжките одежди, който му отправи следната критика, неубягнала от острия ми слух – критика към връхната дреха на жирафовратия младеж: “Ще трябва да пристегнеш яката на палтото си, като прибавиш, или преместиш по-нагоре едно кръгообразно копче”
― Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style

“Inspiration which consists in blind obedience to every impulse is in reality a sort of slavery.”
― Raymond Queneau

“L'instruction! Voyez ce que c'est, monsieur, que l'instruction. On apprend quelque chose à l'école, on se donne même du mal, beaucoup de mal, pour apprendre quelque chose à l'école, et puis vingt ans après, ou même avant, ce n'est plus ça, les choses ont changé, on ne sait plus rien, alors vraiment ce n'était pas la peine. Aussi je préfère penser qu'apprendre.”
― Raymond Queneau, The Blue Flowers

“ОДУШЕВЕНО

Една шапка – мека, кафява, филцова, с провиснала периферия и плетен ширит около бомбето – се мъдреше сред другите, като подскачаше поради неравностите на пътя, преодолявани от колелата на моторното средство, което япревозваше – нея, самата шапка. На всяка спирка, когато пътниците се качваха и слизаха, я отместваха странично, а понякога прекалено, което в края на краищата много я ядоса – нея, самата шапка. Шапката изрази гнева си с човешки глас, изтръгнал се от една снабдена с множество отверстия валчеста и плътна маса с костна структура, която се намираше под нея – под самата шапка. После тя изведнъж се устреми напред, защото се оказа, че има свободно място за нея – за самата шапка.
Час-два по-късно видях как тя – самата шапка, – се носи на метър и шейсет и шест от земята и снове пред гара Сен Лазар. Един приятел я съветваше да прибави копче на палтото си – нея, самата шапка… Допълнително копче… На нейното палто… Да ѝ каже това… На нея… На самата шапка.”
― Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style

“«El verdadero poeta no se encuentra nunca "inspirado": está precisamente por encima de ese más y de ese menos, iguales a sus ojos, que son la técnica y la inspiración; iguales porque domina ambas a la perfección. El verdadero inspirado nunca está inspirado: lo está siempre; no busca la inspiración ni se irrita contra técnica alguna.»”
― Raymond Queneau, Odile

“МЕТАТЕЗА

Вендъж, олоко одеб, на зандата палтформа на енид авботус залебязах малдеж с перкалено дъгъл варт и шакпа, уркасена с върв. Неочавкано той обивни съесда си, че начорно го снатъпвал по карката. Но изгябвайки сканлада, той се врутна мък енда сбоводна селадка.
Вда сача по-кънсо го дивях отвоно перд гатара Нес Залар заендо с генов пирятел, тойко му вадаше съевти онтосно ендо покче.”
― Raymond Queneau, Exercises in Style

“The days that pass, which turn into the time that passes, are neither lovely nor hideous, but always the same. Perhaps it rains for a few seconds sometimes, or the four-o'clock sun holds time back for a few minutes like rearing horses. Perhaps the past doesn't always preserve the beautiful order that clocks give to the present, and perhaps the future is rushing up in disorder, each moment tripping over itself, to be the first to slice itself up. And perhaps there is a charm or horror, grace or abjection, in the convulsive movements of what is going to be and of what has been. But Valentin had never taken any pleasure in these suppositions. He still didn't know enough about the subject. He wanted to be content with an identity nicely chopped into pieces of varying lengths, but whose character was always similar, without dyeing it in autumnal colours, drenching it in April showers or mottling it with the instability of clouds.”
― Raymond Queneau, The Sunday of Life

“Tant d'histoire, dit le duc d'Auge au duc d'Auge, tant d'histoire pour quelques calembours, pour quelques anachronismes! Je trouve cela misérable. On n'en sortira donc jamais?”
― Queneau Raymond

“-Perché vuoi fare la maestra?
- Per rompere le balle alle bambine, - rispose Zazie.- Quelle che avranno la mia età fra dieci, tra vent'anni, tra cinquant'anni, fra cento anni, fra mille anni. Aver sempre da rompere le balle a qualcuno.”
― Raymond Queneau, Zazie in the Metro