“On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage.
(One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.)”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan't be able to prevent.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“There's no better cure for the fear of taking after one's father, than not to know who he is.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Je ne me sens jamais vivre plus intensément que quand je m'échappe à moi-même pour devenir n'importe qui.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“...Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap...”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“When I was younger, I used to make resolutions which imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“C'est dans l'extraordinaire que je me sens le plus naturel.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“For what use is it to forbid what we can't prevent? If books are forbidden, children read them on the sly.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Each one of a pair of lovers fashions himself to meet the other's requirements—endeavors by a continual effort to resemble that idol of himself which he beholds in the other's heart.... Whoever really loves abandons all sincerity.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not going old.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“One can always find hands for a work of destruction.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognise that they are artificially composed.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Those [who] assiduously fabricate for themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not a moment's relaxation.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Le style des Faux-Monnayeurs ne doit présenter aucun intérêt de surface, aucune saillie. Tout doit être dit de la manière la plus plate, celle qui fera dire à certains jongleurs : que trouvez-vous à admirer là-dedans ?”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Dès que Séraphine l'a laissé seul, Gontran se jette à genoux au pied du lit ; il enfonce son front dans les draps, mais ne parvient pas à pleurer ; aucun élan ne soulève son cœur. Ses yeux désespérément restent secs. Alors il se relève. Il regarde ce visage impassible. Il voudrait, en ce moment solennel, éprouver je ne sais quoi de sublime et de rare, écouter une communication de l'au-delà, lancer sa pensée dans des régions éthérées,suprasensibles - mais elle reste accrochée, sa pensée, au ras du sol. Il regarde les mains exsangues du mort, et se demande combien de temps encore les ongles continueront de pousser.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“- Am rămas multă vreme cu pistolul la tâmplă. Eram cu degetul pe trăgaci. Chiar apăsam puţin ; dar nu destul de puternic. Îmi spuneam : "Peste o clipă voi apăsa mai tare şi glonţul va porni." Simţeam răceala metalului şi îmi spuneam "Peste o clipă n-o să mai simt nimic. Dar înainte o să aud un zgomot îngrozitor..." Dă-ţi seama, atât de aproape de ureche !... Şi asta mai cu seamă m-a reţinut : frica de zgomot...
Ceea ce e absurd ; căci din moment ce mori... Da! dar după mine moartea e un fel de somn ; iar o detunăturą nu te adoarme, dimpotrivă, te trezeşte... Da, fără îndoială că de asta-mi era frică. Mi-era teamă că în loc să adorm o să mă trezesc brusc.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Je sens en moi, confusément, des aspirations extraordinaires, des sortes de lames de fond, des mouvements, des agitations incompréhensibles, et que je ne veux pas chercher à comprendre, que je ne veux même pas observer, par crainte de les empêcher de se produire.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
André Gide
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date November 22, 1869
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“Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”
― Richard Connell, quote from The Most Dangerous Game
“The writer is the duelist who never fights at the stated hour, who gathers up an insult, like another curious object, a collector's item, spreads it out on his desk later, and then engages in a duel with it verbally. Some people call it weakness. I call it postponement. What is weakness in the man becomes a quality in the writer. For he preserves, collects what will explode later in his work. That is why the writer is the loneliest man in the world; because he lives, fights, dies, is reborn always alone; all his roles are played behind a curtain. In life he is an incongruous figure.”
― Anaïs Nin, quote from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“Look not into a passion’s mouth to see if it have fangs or honeyed mandibles. The bee that gathers up the nectar of the flowerers gathers their poison, too.”
― Mikhail Naimy, quote from The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark
“the children supposed that he was a pilgrim.”
― quote from Little Pilgrim's Progress: From John Bunyan's Classic
“People, he told her, are shaped somehow by their climate and the land they live in. Those who live by the sea are like the currents and tides; they go and come, and discover many shores. Their words and loves are like water that slips between one's fingers and is never still. Mountain people have fought the mountain to win their place. Once they have conquered it they protect their mountain, and others coming from far below in the valley risk being seen as enemies. Hill people take some time before greeting each other.”
― Gil Courtemanche, quote from A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
The Strange and Beau...
Hunting Ground
Maurice
Winter's Tale
Forever
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