Françoise Sagan Quotes

Françoise Sagan – real name Françoise Quoirez – was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Hailed as "a charming little monster" by François Mauriac on the front page of Le Figaro, Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois characters. Her best-known novel was her first – Bonjour Tristesse – which was written when she was a teenager.

✵ 21. June 1935 – 24. September 2004   •   Other names Françoise Saganová
Françoise Sagan photo

Works

Dans un mois, dans un an
Françoise Sagan
A Certain Smile
A Certain Smile
Françoise Sagan
Bonjour tristesse
Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan: 34   quotes 36   likes

Famous Françoise Sagan Quotes

“I don’t search for exactitude in portraying people. I try to give to imaginary people a kind of veracity.”

Paris Review interview (1956)
Context: I don’t search for exactitude in portraying people. I try to give to imaginary people a kind of veracity. It would bore me to death to put into my novels the people I know. It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the “fronts” people assume before one another’s eyes, and the “front” a writer puts on the face of reality.

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

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

Françoise Sagan Quotes about love

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

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

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

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

“Love is worth whatever it costs.”

Bonjour Tristesse (Published in 1954)

Françoise Sagan Quotes about life

Françoise Sagan Quotes

“For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.”

Paris Review interview (1956)
Context: For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

“Curiosity is the beginning of all wisdom.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jazz music is a form of accelerated unconcern.”

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

“Lying stimulates one's imagination and ingenuity.”

Un peu de soleil dans l'eau froide (1969, Sunlight on Cold Water, translated 1971)

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