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Quote by Françoise Hardy

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The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles: A Memoir by Françoise Hardy

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Françoise Hardy

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“I thought maybe if I looked ugly and less pleasant, the men would not look at me and I'd be safe. I wouldn't wash my face for days. I didn't want to look attractive in any way, at all, lest it invited undue attention and that indescribable guilt. I wanted to somehow become invisible.”

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“There the tree rises. Oh pure surpassing! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh great tree of sound! And all is silent, And from this silence arise New beginnings, intimations, changings. From the stillness animals throng, out of the clear Snapping forest of lair and nest; And thus they are stealthy not from cunning Not from fear But to hear. And in their hearts the howling, the cry, The stag-call seem too little. And where before Was but the rudest shelter to receive these, A refuge fashioned out of darkest longing Entered, tremulo, the doorpost aquiver, - There You have fashioned them a temple for their hearing.”

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“Oh my heart, sing of the gardens which you have never known! Those which are frozen in glass, clear, unreachable. Water and roses of Isfahan, or Shiraz, Give blessed song, give praise equal to none. Oh my heart, give evidence that they have not spared you, And that it is you who are intended, and it is for you that they ripen their figs. That it is you who ply between their blossoming boughs, Like a face, in the rousing winds. Avoid the mistake of imagining some deprivation, For the decision has been taken: to be! Silk thread, weave your way into the fabric! Whatever the image with which you have become one (even if it be but a moment from a life of pain), Feel that the whole carpet, so worthy of praise, is intended!”

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