Clochemerle Quotes

“Since the damage was so small, people were more inclined to laugh that Cudoine should have his ugly mug bashed in. No one had any particular grievance against him, but there was a town major's manner about him that was rather irritating. He looked too pleased with himself, and at Clochemerle this was not popular.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“In a small community sex constitutes the most accessible and least extravagant pastime of all, rustic love being rarely mercenary.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“As everyone knows, people revert to virtuous ways when they are too old for their virtue to be endangered. The confessor was not deceived by any of these women who repented out of impotence or malice and were inclined to criticize in others the very aberrations of which they themselves had formerly been guilty.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“If sharing meant receiving, well and good, but if it was a question of giving, then to hell with it, the Clochemerlins would cry out in chorus. Sad to relate, these bumpkins knew nothing about Hegel or Marx. They each had their little patch of ground inherited from previous generations, their trade secrets handed down from father to son, and they could see no farther.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“The Church should adapt itself to the manners of the time, since it seems only too clear that the manners of the time adapt themselves less and less to the Church.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“Some of his colleagues, as he was well aware, even went so far as to say he dishonoured the medical profession. As though it could be dishonoured! There is pain and sickness, agreed. But pain and sickness represent money, and you need money to live, to feel well and look after others. That is the inevitable cycle. When it comes to money, it is difficult to strike a happy mean and stick to it. You either make too much money, or too little. It is safer to make too much.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]

“What saves doctors' reputations is the fact that many illnesses are benign and that people can go on living with a large number of others, the so-called chronic ones, which destroy only slowly.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-les-Bains [English language]