To read a novel or see a play was to drink life through a straw — to smoke it through a filter-tip. If we were not afraid of blackening our teeth or riddling our lungs with cancer — if we were a dauntless race of men with strong digestions — we would be able to devour life without the aid of these over-civilized devices.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
I was amazed to receive later a substantial sum for sitting in my room and talking about myself. If only I could get some of the back pay!
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to place their entire life in the hands of some other person. For this purpose they frequently choose someone who doesn’t even want the beastly thing.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“Les auteurs de massacres sont simplement des gens qui en ont eu ASSEZ.”
Mass-murderers are simply people who have had ENOUGH.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“Dévêtu, j'avais moins l'air du David que d'un poulet plumé mort de myxomatose.”
When stripped, I looked less like "Il David" than a plucked chicken that died of myxomatosis.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“La vie est une drôle de chose qui m'est arrivé en allant à la tombe.”
Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
The simplest comment on my book came from my ballet teacher. She said, "I wish you hadn’t made every line funny. It’s so depressing."
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
I found that I had become so spinsterish that I was made neurotic not only by my life of domesticity but by the slightest derangement of my room. I would burst into a fit of weeping if the kettle was not facing due east.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
To my disappointment I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
The rest of the world in which I lived was still stumbling about in search of a weapon with which to exterminate this monster whose shape and size were not yet known or even guessed at. It was thought to be Greek in origin, smaller than socialism but more deadly, especially to children.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
Sometimes I wore a fringe so deep it obscured the way ahead. This hardly mattered. There were always others to look where I was going.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
He explained to me that he wanted a simple boy-meets-girl story with lyrics. This I felt was quite beyond my capabilities. I did not know any boys who met girls.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
I started to shed the monstrous aesthetic affectation of my youth so as to make room for the monstrous philistine postures of middle age, but it was some years before I was bold enough to decline an invitation to "Hamlet" on the grounds that I knew who won.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“Comme mannequin, j'avais mon premier emploi où je comprenais ce que je faisais.”
Posing was the first job I did in which I understood what I was doing.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
I never understood music. It seemed to me to be the maximum amount of noise conveying the minimum amount of information.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“La santé consiste à avoir les mêmes maladies que ses voisins.”
Health consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbours.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
All liaisons between homosexuals are conducted as though they were between a chorus girl and a bishop. In some cases both parties think they are bishops.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
“L'autobiographie est la nécrologie en forme sérielle à laquelle manque le dernier numéro.”
An autobiography is obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
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The Naked Civil Servant (Fonctionnaire du nu)
