Romain Gary , born Roman Kacew and also known by pen names such as Émile Ajar, was a French diplomat, novelist, film director and World War II aviator of Lithuanian Jewish origin. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two different names.
“There is more to Jewish history than Auschwitz.”
Interview (1970), republished in Le Judaïsme n’est pas une Question de Sang [Judaism Isn’t About Blood] (2008) by Les éditions de l’Herne, as quoted in "A Chameleon on Show" in Forward (12 January 2011) http://www.forward.com/articles/134609/
“As long as you live, you hope. You think that everything will just… get better.”
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“Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.”
As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 223
“Men sometimes die much earlier than they are burried.”
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“I want to test myself, a trial by fire, so that my I is burned off.”
La Nuit Sera Calme [The Night Will Be Calm] (1974)
Context: Gari in Russian means "burn!"… I want to test myself, a trial by fire, so that my I is burned off.
“I’ve had a lot of fun. Good-bye, and thank you.”
The Life and Death of Émile Ajar (1980), an essay written prior to his suicide, as quoted in "Romain Gary: A Short Biography" by Madeleine Schwartz, at The Harvard Advocate http://www.theharvardadvocate.com/content/romain-gary-short-biography
Context: The gossip that came back to me from fashionable dinners where people pitied poor Romain Gary, who must be a little sad, a little jealous of the meteoric rise in the literary firmament of his cousin Emile Ajar… I’ve had a lot of fun. Good-bye, and thank you.
Promise at Dawn (1960) as quoted in "Great Pretenders" by Emma Garman in Tablet (31 October 2007) http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/906/great-pretenders/
The Dance of Genghis Cohn (1967)
Introduction to The Plague (1946) by Albert Camus, as translated in a 1962 edition.
As quoted in Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2003) by Tzvetan Todorov, p. 217
