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“Earth
O lacerated Earth the rivers mended you
I prefer night and day in the sphinxeries
To know at last I am devoured there”


“'The sunset gargled by the sea
Where seamen pined
The sails and masts are greenery again”

“'The sheep are gone into the snow
Flakes of wool and tufts of money
Soldiers go by and if only I
Had a changing heart of my own
Changing but I know nothing”

“O Ocean distend into darkness
Eyes of dogfish prowl till dawn
Cadavers of days are scavenged by starlight
In the noise of the waves the death of the heart”

…

“Mais le canal était désert
Le quai aussi et nul ne vit
Comment mes baisers retrouvèrent
Celle à qui j’ai donné ma vie
Un jour pendant plus de deux heure”

“'And also I up close am lusterless
A miasma come to dim the lanterns
A sudden hand across the eyes'”

“Puis les marmitons apportèrent les viandes
Des rôtis de pensées mortes dans mon cerveau
Mes beaux rêves mort-nés en tranches bien saignantes
Et mes souvenirs faisandés en godiveaux”

“Ils cueillent les colchiques qui sont comme des mères
Filles de leurs filles et sont couleur de tes paupières
Qui battent comme les fleurs battent au vent dément

Le gardien du troupeau chante tout doucement
Tandis que lentes et meuglant les vaches abandonnent
Pour toujours ce grand pré mal fleuri par l’automne“

“'Et je chantais cette romance
En 1903 sans savoir
Que mon amour à la semblance
Du beau Phénix s’il meurt un soir
Le matin voit sa renaissance.'“

“I told her Maman had died. She wanted to know how long ago, so I said, “Yesterday.” She gave a little start but didn’t say anything. I felt like telling her it wasn’t my fault, but I stopped myself because I remembered that I’d already said that to my boss. It didn’t mean anything. Besides, you always feel a little guilty.”

“He does not seem to have the gift of hardness.”

Except when it comes to Melanie…?

“Like a thing of wood, he turns and leaves.”

“(…) une jolie rue dont j’ai oublié le nom
Neuve et propre du soleil elle était le clairon
Les directeurs les ouvriers et les belles sténo-dactylo-graphes
Du lundi matin au samedi soir quatre fois par jour y passent
Le matin par trois fois la sirène y gémit
Une cloche rageuse y aboie vers midi
Les inscriptions des enseignes et des murailles
Les plaques les avis à la façon des perroquets criaillent”

“By most measurements, yes, he believes he is. However, he has not forgotten the last chorus of Oedipus: Call no man happy until he is dead.”

“He ought to give up, retire from the game. At what age, he wonders, did Origen castrate himself? Not the most graceful of solutions, but then ageing is not a graceful business.” 😭😭

“The only trouble was, Church, even the Catholic Church, didn't take up the whole of your life. No matter how much you knelt and prayed, you still had to eat three meals a day and have a job and live in the world.”

Baby just wants a friend 🥺

“I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.”

“Half-past five strikes. I get up, my cold shirt sticks to my flesh. I go out. Why? Well, because I have no reason not to. Even if I stay, even if I crouch silently in a corner, I shall not forget myself. I will be there, my weight on the floor. I am.”

“I know she's doing it: succumbing to the delights of self-mutilation and that maybe I can help her to change; or accompany her rather than change her, because even before I got to know her I knew she was the most unchangeable person, and also the most brilliant, the most articulate, the best at expressing herself and the one who understood everything. Margot, what could you be doing?”

“he was taking his relaxation too, by Heaven, and it was writing verses. But he had the eagle eye of a leader.

And soldiers? I was in the centre of the room, the cynosure of all these grave eyes. […] My existence began to worry me seriously. Was I not a simple spectre?”

“yes, I was there, living in the midst of these books full of knowledge describing the immutable forms of the animal species, explaining that the right quantity of energy is kept integral in the universe; I was there, standing in front of a window whose panes had a definite refraction index. But what feeble barriers! I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day.”

“Where shall I keep mine? You don't put your past in your pocket; you have to have a house. I have only my body: a man entirely alone, with his lonely body, cannot indulge in memories; they pass through him. I shouldn't complain: all I wanted was to be free.

“there are days which pass in disorder, and then, sudden lightning like this one.
Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can't describe it; it's like the Nausea and yet it's just the opposite: at last an adventure happens to me and when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here; I am the one who splits the night, I am as happy as the hero of a novel.”

“But this paltry event is not like the others: suddenly you see that it is the beginning of a great shape whose outlines are lost in mist and you tell yourself, "Something is beginning." Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well.”

“A torrid sun moves stiffly in my head like a magic lantern slide. A fragment of blue sky follows; after a few jolts it becomes motionless. I am all golden within. From what Moroccan (or Algerian or Syrian) day did this flash suddenly detach itself?”

“Suddenly: it was almost unbearable to become so hard, so brilliant. At the same time the music was drawn out, dilated, swelled like a waterspout. It filled the room with its metallic transparency, crushing our miserable time against the walls. I am in the music. Globes of fire turn in the mirrors; encircled by rings of smoke, veiling and unveiling the hard smile of light.”

“There is a white hole in the wall, a mirror. It is a trap. I know I am going to let myself be caught in it. I have. The grey thing appears in the mirror. I go over and look at it, I can no longer get away.”

“Existentialism is a philosophy, as a matter of fact, because it has been lengthily adumbrated by men trained in the philosophical disciplines; but it is also and more fundamentally a shift in ordinary human attitudes that has altered every aspect of life in our civilization.”

“For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words.”

Work is love made visible.

Work is love made visible.

“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”