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Muriel Barbery

Muriel Barbery Quotes

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Famous Muriel Barbery Quotes

“This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship.”

MindFirstsPersonsSelfShareSolitudeSurrenderReleaseCertaintyComparisonPeace Of MindOpennessSerenityPausesCompanionshipExquisiteFluency
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“I have read so many books. And yet, like most Autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of no where, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading. And then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates and no matter how often I reread the same lines they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she's been reading the menu.”

IfsThinkingKnowsFeelsHas BeensBookMatterSeemsAbleTogetherReadingLinesFoolSpringEssenceMadInvisibleBranchesStomachStrandsMenusWeaving
Book:The Elegance of the Hedgehog
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“...This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. [...] We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. [...] As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.”

PeopleIfsGivingTryingFirstsLooksFactsGivenChanceFateCrazyMetsFirst TimeGive MeMirrorsPermanentAssumptionWildernessGiven Up
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“..when I say that "he's a truly nasty man," I mean he has so thoroughly renounced everything good that he might have inside him that he's already like a corpse even though he's still alive. Because truly nasty people hate everyone, to be sure, but most of all themselves. Can't you tell when a person hates himself? He becomes a living cadaver, it numbs all his negative emotions but also all the good ones so he won't feel nauseated by who he is.”

PeopleMenFeelsMeanPersonsStillsMightHateEmotionAliveNegativeNastyCorpsesNegative EmotionsCadaversNasty People
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“We musn't forget old people with their rotten bodies, old people who are so close to death, something that young people don't want to think about. We musn't forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. Nor must we forget that these old people were young once, that a lifespan is pathetically short, that one day you're twenty and the next day you're eighty.”

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Author:Muriel Barbery
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“But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind: to be intelligent, which is really stupid. And when intelligence takes itself for its own goal, it operates very strangely: the proof that it exists is not to be found in the ingenuity or simplicity of what it produces, but in how obscurely it is expressed.”

PeopleThinkingMindIdeasEndsFoundGoalStupidProduceIntelligentSimplicityProofBugsIngenuityReally Stupid
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature...yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are - vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth - and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honor this beauty that owes us nothing.”

ThinkingFirstsFeelingsEarthHumanityWonderTeachTreeHonorSurfaceNostalgiaRidiculousIndifferentOur LoveMajestyDeservingParasitesSense Of WonderInsignificance
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“Beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It’s the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you see both their beauty and their death. ...Does this mean that this is how we must live our lives? Constantly poised between beauty and death, between movement and its disappearance? Maybe that’s what being alive is all about: so we can track down those moments that are dying.”

MeanDoeMomentsOur LivesAliveDyingMovementTrackPassingPassingsEphemeralDisappearanceConfiguration
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain Beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you've spoken or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognise a well-tuned phrase or an elegant style. But when you are applying the rules of grammar skilfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language. When you use grammar you peel back the layers, to see how it is all put together, to see it quite naked, in a way.”

IfsThinkingWayWritingWellsUseTogetherSpeakLanguageLevelsWrittenStyleFineSentencesNakedPhrasesLayersElegantGrammarRecognise
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“This morning I understand what it means to die: when we disappear, it is the others who die for us, for here I am, lying on a cold pavement and it is not the dying I care about; it has no more meaning this morning that it did yesterday. But never again will I see those I love, and if that is what dying is about then it really is the tragedy they say it is.”

IfsMeanCareLyingDiesMorningDyingColdTragedyDisappearYesterdayI CareHere I AmPavement
Author:Muriel Barbery
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“Colombe Josse is the older Jesse daughter. Colombe Jesse is also a sort of tall blonde leek who dresses like a penniless Bohemian. If there is one thing I despise, it is the perverse affectation of rich people who go around dressing as if they were poor, in second-hand clothes, ill-fitting gray bonnets, socks full of holes, and flowered shirts under threadbare sweaters. Not only is it ugly, it is also insulting: nothing is more despicable than a rich man's scorn for a poor man's longing.”

PeopleIfsMenHandsPoorRichOne ThingGratitudeClothesDaughterDressesLongingIllUglyHolesShirtsTallGrayDespiseDressingsScornRich PeopleFittingInsultingSockBlondeRich ManPoor ManSweatersDespicableBohemianSecond HandBonnetsSecond Hand Clothes
Author:Muriel Barbery
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