xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“No one, but no one, ever behaves "well" in bed unless they love or are loved — two conditions seldom fulfilled.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Scars on the Soul (1972)

“I can say everything to you. It's a wonderful feeling. I never could tell Francoise that I don't really love her, that our marriage isn't based on any hones ideal. It's founded on my weariness and boredom. Although those are solid enough bases. Plenty of lasting marriages are build on them, God knows. At least, they're always present.”

Françoise Sagan book A Certain Smile

Un certain sourire (1955, A Certain Smile, translated 1956)

“Nothing becomes some women more than the prick of ambition. Love, on the contrary, may make them very dull.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“In love, as in finance, only the rich can get credit.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“The fact that a woman you love reaches a point in the relationship where she ceases to love you, and despite that you can never bring yourself to scorn or despise her, is very rare indeed.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“Women believed in death. Without exception. It was part of their makeup. Whereas men refused to face up to it. Not only death, in fact, but life, too: a man, learning that his wife or girlfriend is pregnant, reacts like some beast of the field - "I can't believe it's true!" - while women look at the same situation as either happy news or a momentary inconvenience.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“Unhappiness has nothing to teach, and resignation is ugly.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“It is healthier to see the good points of others than to analyze our own bad ones.”

Françoise Sagan book A Certain Smile

Un certain sourire (1955, A Certain Smile, translated 1956)

“It's not doubt that drives people crazy, it's certainty that does.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion. Art should not, it seems to me, pose the “real” as a preoccupation. Nothing is more unreal than certain so-called “realist” novels — they’re nightmares. It is possible to achieve in a novel a certain sensory truth — the true feeling of a character — that is all.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Paris Review interview (1956)

“No one is more conventional than a woman who is falling out of love.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“When a man has dreamed of winning something by a colossal stroke of luck, he is prone to neglect petty but more practical ways of attaining it.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“Desire, even the basest, kind, required the notion of futurity if it was ever to come off. A man without a future, a dying man, was no longer desirable. And however stupid such a reaction might have seemed, Paul knew that if the situation was ever reversed, he would feel the same way about the woman. Desire would have turned into compassion. Which is tantamount to saying that desire would vanish into thin air.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“Edouard was trying to understand, to find out what he could have done to lose Beatrice's favor. He couldn't know that his unpardonable sin was the fact that he was too deserving.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

“One must cherish one's effigies, if one can tolerate them, perhaps more lovingly than one cherishes one's intrinsic self.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

That's the ABC of pride. And of humor.
Scars on the Soul (1972)

“Paul had always thought that women were never more serious than when they were naked.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“We always want someone we've treated badly to be gay. It's less upsetting.”

Françoise Sagan book A Certain Smile

Un certain sourire (1955, A Certain Smile, translated 1956)

“Very broadly, I think one writes and rewrites the same book. I lead a character from book to book, I continue along with the same ideas. Only the angle of vision, the method, the lighting, change.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Paris Review interview (1956)

“She'd like to be indispensable; that's what every woman wants…”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)