“non pas vivre pour penser, mais penser à vivre”

“Life has been some combination of fairy-tale coincidence and joie de vivre and shocks of beauty together with some hurtful self-questioning.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“Why must one talk? Often one shouldn't talk, but live in silence. The more one talks, the less the words mean. (Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie)”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

“If only there was enough space on this tiny card to evoke my unfettered joie de vivre for what you have done. The gaiety, the mirth, the heavenly bubbling of every effusive cell that sings inside me for your kind and pithy offering.”

Joshua Braff (1967) American writer

“La Fortune, pour arriver à moi, passera par les conditions que lui impose mon caractère.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

“Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it.
- Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Dying Detective

“Pas a pas, se va luenh.
Step by step, we make our way.”

Kate Mosse (1961) English novelist, non-fiction and short story writer and broadcaster

“Les valeurs oniriques l'ont définitivement emporté sur les autres et je demande à ce qu'on tienne pour un crétin celui qui se refuserait encore, par exemple, à voir un cheval galoper sur une tomate. Une tomate est aussi un ballon d'enfant, le surréalisme, je le répète, ayant supprimé le mot comme.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

“Now, as an embittered cynic, I should be almost programmed to vomit all over the screen at the mere sight of this, but instead, I find it strangely moving. You see, as I stare into their happy smiling faces filled with naive joie de vivre, I know they're just blissfully unaware of the crushing despair that awaits them as they venture further into adulthood. The myriad disappointments, the yawning chasms of pain, the slow gnawing descent into physical decay, the sheer unrelenting horror of it all.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England