Francois Mauriac quotes

„If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.“

—  Francois Mauriac

„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.

„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.

„No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.“

—  Francois Mauriac

„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

„To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.“

—  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

„I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted.“

—  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

„God does not answer our desperate questionings; he simply gives us himself.“

—  Francois Mauriac

„I believe that only poetry counts… A great novelist is first of all a great poet.“

—  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

„There is no accident in our choice of reading. All our sources are related.“

—  Francois Mauriac

„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

„A cemetery saddens us because it is the only place of the world in which we do not meet our dead again.“

—  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