“How shallow is the stage on which this vast drama of human hates and joys and friendships is played! Whence do men draw this passion for eternity, flung by chance as they are upon a scarcely cooled bed of lava, threatened by the beginning by the deserts that are to be, under the constant menace of the snows? Their civilizations are but fragile gildings: a volcano can blot them out, a new sea, a sand-storm.”

French writer, poet, journalist and aviator

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French writer, poet, journalist, and aviator. He is best known as the author of The Little Prince. His work combines literary writing with the experience of flight, which shaped both his reputation and the tone of his best-known book. He is remembered for prose that moves between travel, reflection, and the wider human concerns that appear in his writing.