“But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
“I racked my brains to discover some sense in the events I had witnessed. I needed this intellectual exercise to escape from the despair that haunted me, to prove to myself that I was a man, I mean a man from Earth, a reasoning creature who made it a habit to discover a logical explanation for the apparently miraculous whims of nature, and not a beast hunted down by highly developed apes.”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
“This time I felt it was impossible that they could entertain further doubt as to my true condition. Alas, I did not yet know the blindness of orangutans!”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
“Des hommes raisonnables? Des hommes détenteurs de la sagesse? Des hommes inspirés par l'espirit? ... Non, ce n'est pas possible.”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
“That perfected machines may one day succeed us is, I remember, an extremely commonplace notion on Earth. It prevails not only among poets and romantics but in all classes of society. Perhaps it is because it is so widespread, born spontaneously in popular imagination, that it irritates scientific minds. Perhaps it is also for this very reason that it contains a germ of truth. Only a germ: Machines will always be machines; the most perfected robot, always a robot. But what of living creatures possessing a certain degree of intelligence, like apes? And apes, precisely, are endowed with a keen sense of imitation.…”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
“But how could one hold this against her when faced with the perfection of her body? Suddenly”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes
Pierre Boulle
Born place: in Avignon, France
Born date February 21, 1912
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“Life itself had become disembodied. My family, the spine of my days, had crumbled. I was lost in invertebrate time.”
― Joseph O'Neill, quote from Netherland
“How is San Francisco, Alex? Lovely city. Will you leave your heart there? Do you think it's a good place to die?”
― James Patterson, quote from Violets Are Blue
“Una curva de la calle puso ante su vista el campanario de la catedral de Westminster, la forma fálica más descarada del horizonte londinense.”
― David Lodge, quote from The British Museum Is Falling Down
“Beyond a given point man is not helped by more “knowing,” but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way. As Goethe put it, we must plunge into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. All reflection and no plunging drives us mad; all plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes.”
― Ernest Becker, quote from The Denial of Death
“Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart," he read aloud from an old essay on marriage that he found in his files.
"Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness...and looks forward to happiness and content feels the necessity of loving. Without it, life is unfinished...”
― Jan Karon, quote from A Light in the Window
The Algebraist
Master of the Senate
The Conquest of Gaul
The Jesus I Never Kn...
Mortal Heart
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