Muriel Barbery

“אולי לחיות משמעו לרדוף אחר הרגעים ההולכים וכלים.”

“אולי החיים משמעם ייאוש גדול, אך כמה רגעים של יופי.”

“הנצח הוא הבלתי נראה המתבונן בנו.”

“מי שמעולם לא טעם את הבושם המשכר של הכוח לא יכול לדמיין את השפריץ הפתאומי הזה של אדרנלין שמקרין את כל הגוף, מפעיל את ההרמוניה של המחוות, מוחק כל עייפות, כל מציאות שאינה מתכופפת לפי סדר ההנאה שלך, האקסטזה הזו של עוצמה חסרת רסן, כשאין יותר מה להילחם אלא רק ליהנות ממה שזכית.”

“מה עומד על כף המאזניים בפנים אל פנים של מי שמוותר ומי שכובש, האם זו השתייכות, האם זה ויתור?”

“The time of man is coming, and of this I am certain: neither death, nor life, nor the spirits, nor the present, nor the future, nor the stars, nor the abyss, nor any creature: nothing will keep from love those who live in our land, and by our land. The time of man is coming─men who will know the nobility of forests and the grace of trees, men who will know how to contemplate and heal and, lastly, how to love.”

“I am going to die, but that is of no importance.”

“I have read so many books. And yet, like most Autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of no where, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading. And then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates and no matter how often I reread the same lines they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she's been reading the menu.”

“If you want to heal Heal othersAnd smile or weepAt this happy reversal of fate”

“With her it's as if a text was written so that we can identify the characters, the narrator, the setting, the plot, the time of the story, and so on. I don't think it has ever occurred to her that a text is written above all to be read and to arouse emotions in the reader.”

“What makes the strength of the soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered. That Maori player was like a tree, a great indestructible oak with deep roots and a powerful radiance- everyone could feel it. And yet you also got the impression that the great oak could fly, that it would be as quick as the wind, despite, or perhaps because of, its deep roots.”

“It would never have crossed her mind spontaneously that somebody might actually need silence. That silence helps you to go inward, that anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence: this, I think, is not something Colombe is capable of understanding, because her inner space is as chaotic and noisy as the street outside.”

“I don't know if you have any idea what a high school in Paris is like in this day and age in the posh neighborhoods—but quite honestly, the slummy banlieues of Marseille have nothing on ours. In fact it may even be worse here, because where you have money, you have drugs—and not just a little bit and not just one kind.”

“For a few seconds Maria did not move, or even breathe, apparently. Then she gave a sorrowful gulp and, like all little girls, even those who speak to fantastical wild boars and mercurial horses, she collapsed in desperate sobs, of the kind that come so easily to a twelve-year-old, and so hard to a person of forty.”

“Entrusting one's life is not the same as opening up one's soul.”

“Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are reborn or forgotten, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to become entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misuse of language, one must first and foremost have sworn one's total allegiance.”

“If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.”

“There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of nowhere, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading--and then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates, and no matter how often I reread the same lines, they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading...”

“Maybe the greatest anger and frustration come not from unemployment or poverty or the lack of a future but from the feeling that you have no culture, because you've been torn between cultures, between incompatible symbols. How can you exist if you don't know where you are? So you burn cars, ecause when you have no culture, you're no longer a civilised animal, you're a wild beast. And a wild beast burns and kills and pillages.”

“I understood that I was suffering because I couldn't make anyone else around me feel better.”