1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Francois Mauriac

Francois Mauriac Quotes

François Charles Mauriac was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the Académie française , and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958. He was a lifelong Catholic. Wikipedia  

✵ 11. October 1885 – 1. September 1970
Francois Mauriac photo

Works

Vipers' Tangle
Francois Mauriac
Questions of Precedence
Francois Mauriac
Vipers' Tangle
Francois Mauriac
Questions of Precedence
Francois Mauriac
Francois Mauriac: 38 quotes9 likes

Famous Francois Mauriac Quotes

“I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.”

Francois Mauriac

Source: Viper's Tangle

Francois Mauriac Quotes about love

“What makes a poet is, surely, the love of these things, a desperate search for the tiny ray of sunshine which used to flicker on the floor of a child’s bedroom.”

Francois Mauriac book Questions of Precedence

Ce qui fait le poète, n'est-ce pas l'amour, la recherche désespérée du moindre rayon de soleil d'autrefois jouant sur le parquet d'une chambre d'enfant?
Préséances (1921), cited from Oeuvres romanesques, vol.1 (Paris: Flammarion, 1965) p. 301; Gerard Hopkins (trans.) Questions of Precedence (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958) p. 46.

“I love Germany so much I'm glad there are two of them.”

Francois Mauriac

J’aime tellement l’Allemagne que je suis heureux qu’il y en ait deux.
As quoted in The Rough Guide to Germany (2004) by Gordon McLachlan, p. vii.

“The man who partakes in the breaking of the bread dares to build his house on the very core of love. He becomes, as it were, Godlike, but regardless of the strength he derives from it, his free will remains. We are always free to disown this immense grace, to abuse it. The Greatest Love may be betrayed. Fed on the Living Bread, we nevertheless conceal a part of ourselves which longs for swine's food.”

Francois Mauriac

“We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those who have loved us, and though that love may pass, we remain none the less their work--a work that very likely they do not recognize, and which is never exactly what they intended.”

Francois Mauriac

“What makes a poet is, surely, the love of these things, a desperate search for the tiny ray of sunshine which used to flicker on the floor of a child’s bedroom.”

Francois Mauriac

Francois Mauriac Quotes

“That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late.”

Francois Mauriac

“Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell.”

Francois Mauriac

Journal, 1932-1939 (Paris: Table ronde, 1947) p. 278; Adrienne Foulke (trans.) Second Thoughts (Plainview, NY: Books for Libraries Press, [1961] 1973) p. 148.
Context: Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell.

“Very little would have been needed for the tears of Judas to be allied in the memory of mankind with those of Peter.”

Francois Mauriac

Vie de Jésus (Paris: Flammarion, 1936) p. 257; Julie Kernan (trans.) Life of Jesus (New York: David McKay, [1937] 1951) p. 223.
Context: Very little would have been needed for the tears of Judas to be allied in the memory of mankind with those of Peter. He might have become a saint, the patron of all of us who constantly betray Christ.

“Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread.”

Francois Mauriac

“The effort of explaining, even of expressing himself, had become, with the years, more and more terrifying to him. Whether from laziness or from inability to find the right words, he had developed almost a passion for silence.”

Francois Mauriac

Source: Thérèse

“The myth of Prometheus means that all the sorrows of the world have their seat in the liver. But it needs a brave man to face so humble a truth.”

Francois Mauriac book Vipers' Tangle

Le mythe de Prométhée signifie que toute la tristesse du monde a son siège dans le foie. Mais qui oserait reconnaître une vérité si humble?
Le Nœud de vipères (1932), cited from Oeuvres romanesques, vol. 2 (Paris: Flammarion, 1965) p. 166; Gerard Hopkins (trans.) Knot of Vipers (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951) p. 151.

“Most men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed off wings where he never ventures.”

Francois Mauriac

Presque tous les hommes ressemblent à ces grands palais déserts dont le propriétaire n'habite que quelques pièces; et il ne pénètre jamais dans les ailes condamnées.
Journal, 1932-1939 (Paris: Table ronde, 1947) p. 6; Adrienne Foulke (trans.) Second Thoughts (Plainview, NY: Books for Libraries Press, [1961] 1973) p. 142.

“One can touch a living soul through a curtain of vice and crime no matter how dense and dark: but vulgarity is an insurmountable barrier.”

Francois Mauriac book Vipers' Tangle

On atteint aisément une âme vivante à travers les crimes, les vices les plus tristes, mais la vulgarité est infranchissable.
Le Nœud de vipères (1932), cited from Oeuvres romanesques, vol. 2 (Paris: Flammarion, 1965) p. 190; Gerard Hopkins (trans.) Knot of Vipers (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1951] 1985) p. 193.

“Let us be wary of ready-made ideas about cowardice and courage: the same burden weighs infinitely more heavily on some shoulders than on others.”

Francois Mauriac

“We know well only what we are deprived of.”

Francois Mauriac

“The arrogance of poets is only a defense; doubt gnaws the greatest among them; they need our testimony to escape despair.”

Francois Mauriac

“The grandeur of man lies in song, not in thought.”

Francois Mauriac

“Every novel worthy of the name is like another planet, whether large or small, which has its own laws just as it has its own flora and fauna.”

Francois Mauriac

“This God who, as the psalmist said, built His tabernacles in the sun, now establishes Himself in the very core of the flesh and the blood.”

Francois Mauriac

“What I fear is not being forgotten after my death, but, rather, not being enough forgotten. As we were saying, it is not our books that survive, but our poor lives that linger in the histories.”

Francois Mauriac

“It seems that, after nineteen centuries of extraordinary glorification, the small Host for which so many cathedrals have sprung up, the small Host that has rested in millions of breasts and that has found a tabernacle and worshippers even in the desert - it seems that the triumphant Host of Lourdes and the Eucharistic Congresses of Chicago and Carthage remains as unknown, as secret as when it appeared for the first time in a room in Jerusalem. Light is in the world as in the days of St. John the Baptist, and the world does not know it.”

Francois Mauriac

“Did you ever have a conversation with someone who misunderstood everything you had to say? It's exhausting, and the ironic part is that the more you try and explain yourself, the more mixed up things become. Your best friend knows when you're kidding, venting, and tired. He or she knows you and therefore doesn't read into the things you say.”

Francois Mauriac

“The scapegoat has always had the mysterious power of unleashing man's ferocious pleasure in torturing, corrupting, and befouling.”

Francois Mauriac

Similar authors

Albert Camus photo
Albert Camus209
French author and journalist None
Romain Rolland photo
Romain Rolland43
French author None
André Maurois photo
André Maurois202
French writer None
Romain Gary photo
Romain Gary16
French writer and diplomat None
Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Louis-ferdinand Céline88
French writer None
Henri Barbusse photo
Henri Barbusse197
French novelist None
Marcel Proust photo
Marcel Proust41
French novelist, critic, and essayist None
Milan Kundera photo
Milan Kundera198
Czech author of Czech and French literature None
Jacques Prevért photo
Jacques Prevért12
French poet, screenwriter None
André Breton photo
André Breton70
French writer None