Anne Berest > Quotes

“Take the time to listen and to get to know yourself. Take the time to change, to grow, to rest. Take the time to say yes, take the time to say no. Take the time to be quiet. Take the time to look after your body, to eat well. Take the time to ask yourself who you are and what you want.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“She doesn't have a ring on each finger, or a big diamond on each ring.
She doesn't wear a gold watch that costs as much as a fancy car.
In fact, she doesn't own a fancy car.
She doesn't carry an enormous designer bag.
But she might have a newspaper under her arm.
She might mention Sartre or Foucault in a conversation.
It's her personality that sparkles and nothing else: the signs of intellectual wealth.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“TAKE THE TIME to talk to the elderly lady next door, to read a book, to walk to work instead of riding the subway when it’s a beautiful day. Take the time to escape for a weekend with friends. Take the time to listen and to get to know yourself. Take the time to change, to grow, to rest. Take the time to say yes, take the time to say no. Take the time to be quiet. Take the time to look after your body, to eat well. Take the time to ask yourself who you are and what you want.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“She’s Parisian, which is to say she’s melancholy. Her mood responds to the changing colours of her city. She can feel a sudden surge of sorrow or even hope for no reason at all. In the blink of an eye, all those lost memories and smells come flooding back, reminding her of loved ones who are no longer there. And time passing by.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“Take the time to take time because nobody else will do it for you.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible; it gives you a healthy glow.”
― Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, Sophie Mas, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“In short, you’re not a slave to the cult of the perfect body – so learn to make the best of what nature gave you.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“In the street, at a café, on the bus, a person’s face can tell a story, like a crystal ball that reveals the past. Happy or long-lost loves, births, hopes and victories, successes interwoven with twists of fate.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“MANTRA: “My demand as a woman is that my difference be taken into account and that I not be forced to adapt to the male model.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“WHAT YOU WON’T FIND IN HER CLOSET * Three-inch heels. Why live life halfway? * Logos. You are not a billboard. * Nylon, polyester, viscose and vinyl will make you sweaty, smelly and shiny. * Sweatpants. No man should ever see you in those. Except your gym teacher – and even then. Leggings are tolerated. * Blingy jeans with embroidery and holes in them. They belong to Bollywood. * UGG boots. Enough said.”
― Anne Berest, How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are

“There are, in the genealogical tree, traumatized, unprocessed places that are eternally seeking relief. From these places, arrows are launched toward future generations. Anything that has not been resolved must be repeated and will affect someone else, a target located one or more generations in the future.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“Don’t be afraid of aging. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of anything but fear itself. Find “your” perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years. No one should ever see your gums when you talk or laugh. If you own only one sweater, make sure it’s cashmere. Wear a black bra under your white blouse, like two notes on a sheet of music. One must live with the opposite sex, not against them. Except when making love. Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days. Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible: it gives you a healthy glow. Be aware of your qualities and your faults. Cultivate them in private but don’t obsess. Make it look easy. Everything you do should seem effortless and graceful. Not too much makeup, too many colors, too many accessories …  Take a deep breath and keep it simple. Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details. Be your own knight in shining armor. Cut your own hair or ask your sister to do it for you. Of course you know celebrity hairdressers, but only as friends. Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know. Either go all gray or no gray hair. Salt and pepper is for the table.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“She always wears her sunglasses, even when it rains.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“Indifference is universal. Who are you indifferent toward today, right now? Ask yourself that. Which victims living in tents, or under overpasses, or in camps way outside the cities are your ‘invisible ones’? The Vichy regime set out to remove the Jews from French society. And they succeeded.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“feel like some sense of memory makes us attracted to places our ancestors knew, celebrate dates that were important in the past, and become drawn to people whose family once crossed paths with ours without our even knowing it. Call it psychogenealogy, or cellular memory . . . all I know is, this isn’t just chance.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“For almost forty years, I have tried to draw a shape that resembles me, but without success. Today, though, I can connect those disparate dots. I can see, in the constellation of fragments scattered over the page, a silhouette in which I recognize myself at last: I am the daughter, and the granddaughter, of survivors.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“Not that she wanted to have sex with him, necessarily. Only that she was happy to acknowledge, on this late-summer evening, that he was a man and she a woman, and if he found her attractive, that was all right with her.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“I search in the history books for the things I was never told. I can’t read enough; I always want to read. My hunger for knowledge is never sated.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“And the rest of the world goes about its business; we eat, we drink, we sleep, we attend to our needs, and that’s it. Oh yes, we know people are fighting somewhere. How do you expect me to feel about it—I, who have everything I need. No, but really, people are dying of hunger out there, we say, while stuffing ourselves with every kind of dish imaginable. I want music, and I turn the wireless dial, tuning out the news and replacing it with Tino Rossi’s beautiful voice, cooing about Barcelona again. There, that’s better. Indifferent. We are completely indifferent. Eyes closed, naïve and innocent, we do nothing but talk—we shout—we fight and make up—and all that time, men are dying.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“It would be wrong to call them memories; they are moments of life, that man hat es erlebt- one has lived. They are inside me, part of me, branded into my skin, you might say - but they're not memories I want to live with, because there's no experience to be gained from them.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“She doesn’t have a ring on each finger, or a big diamond on each ring.

She doesn’t wear a gold watch that costs as much as a fancy car.

In fact, she doesn’t own a fancy car.

She doesn’t carry an enormous designer bag.

But she might have a newspaper under her arm.

She might mention Sartre or Foucault in a conversation.

It’s her personality that sparkles and nothing else: the signs of intellectual wealth.”
― Anne Berest Audrey Diwan Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas

“It’s incredible how much is still there in the archives, like an underground world, a parallel world, still alive. Like the embers of a fire . . . all you have to do is blow on them to rekindle the flame.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“The uniqueness of this catastrophe lay in the paradox of its insidious slowness and its viciousness. Looking back, everyone wondered why they hadn’t reacted sooner, when there had been so much time to do so.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“It’s her personality that sparkles and nothing else: the signs of intellectual wealth.”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“She drinks vodka in the evening and green tea in the morning.”
― Anne Berest

“A true friend isn't the one who dries your tears. It's the one who never causes them to be shed.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard

“Just because you only have one life doesn't mean you should be afraid of wasting it.”
― Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, Sophie Mas, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“Yes, she'll admit that her charm is somewhat artificial. Et alors?”
― Anne Berest, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

“Black is the color of celebration, the color of nights that never end...”
― Anne Berest

“A whole crowd of people, and not one true human among them.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard