Leslie

“You know, people always seem overwhelmed by their lives, while You, somehow You’ve turned the tables on life, and it’s You who seem to be on top. Voilà. I don’t know else how to put it. Would You like a lemon sherbet?”
― Françoise Sagan, That Mad Ache: A Novel

“You should stay away from your potential. I mean, that is something you should leave absolutely alone! You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you know – you always have much less than you think. Leave it as the locked door within yourself and then at least, in your mind, the interior will always be palatial. Wonderful gleaming marble floors, brocaded drapes. Mullioned windows, covered in mullions, whatever they are. Flamingos serving drinks. Pianos shooting out canapés into the mouths of elegant men and women who are exchanging witticisms… “Oh yes, this reminds me of the time I was in BudaPESHT with Binky… We were trying to steal a goose from the casino, muahahaha…” But it won’t be like that. You don’t want to find out that the most you could possibly achieve, if you gave it your all, if you harvested every screed of energy within you, and devoted yourself to improving yourself, that all you would get to would be maybe eating less cheesy snacks.”
― Dylan Moran

“He knew this euphoria of hers: it was the euphoria of being alone.”
― Françoise Sagan, That Mad Ache: A Novel

“When I was a child”? Only the nostalgia for those days of utter, absolute irresponsibility, now long gone. But for her (and this she would never have admitted to anyone), those days weren’t gone at all. She still felt totally irresponsible.”
― Françoise Sagan, That Mad Ache: A Novel