Alain Robbe-Grillet Quotes

• The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Writing, Way

  53 Copy quote

• Memory belongs to the imagination. Human memory is not like a computer which records things; it is part of the imaginative process, on the same terms as invention.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Memories, Imagination, Records

  27 Copy quote

• the world is neither meaningful, nor absurd. it quite simply is, and that, in any case, is what is so remarkable about it.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Meaningful, World, Absurd

  17 Copy quote

• Memory belongs to the imagination.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Memories, Imagination

  12 Copy quote

• What do young girls dream of? Of the knife and of blood.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Girl, Dream, Blood

  14 Copy quote

• The art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation - a lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion - that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without some radical change. To many, the solution seems simple enough: such a change being impossible, the art of the novel is dying.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Change, Art, Simple

  Alain Robbe-Grillet, Richard Howard (1989). “For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction”, p.17, Northwestern University Press

  15 Copy quote

• Le lecteur, lui non plus, ne voit pas les choses du dehors. Il est dans le labyrinthe aussi. The reader [as well as the main character] does not view the work from outside. He too is in the labyrinth.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Character, Views, Labyrinth

  1959 Dans le labyrinthe.

  18 Copy quote

• There is a famous Russian cartoon in which a hippopotamus, in the bush, points out a zebra to another hippopotamus: 'You see,' he says, 'now that’s formalism.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Zebras, Cartoon, Hippopotamus

  Alain Robbe-Grillet, Richard Howard (1989). “For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction”, p.43, Northwestern University Press

  40 Copy quote

• To tell the truth, girls are no longer the way they used to be. They play gangsters, nowadays, just like boys. They organize rackets. They plan holdups and practice karate. They will rape defenseless adolescents. They wear pants... Life has become impossible.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Girl, Boys, Practice

  Alain Robbe-Grillet (2015). “La Maison de Rendez-Vous and Djinn: Two Novels”, p.11, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

• Et une fois de plus je m'avan c° ais le long de ces me" mes couloirs, marchant depuis des jours, depuis des mois, depuis des anne es, a' votre rencontre. And one more time, I advanced along these same hallways, walking for days, for months, for years, to meet you.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Years, Long, Months

  1961 L'Anne e dernie're a' Marienbad.

  10 Copy quote

• Deux me' tresou un peu plusse parent donc l'homme de la femme. Two metres, or a little more, separates a man from a woman.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Men, Two, Parent

  8 Copy quote

• Premie' re approximation: j'e cris pour de truire, en les de crivant avec pre cision, des monstres nocturnes qui menacent d'envahir ma vie e veille e. First general point: I write to destroy, by describing exactly the nocturnal monsters that threaten to invade my waking life.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Writing, Monsters, Waking Life

  1984 LeMiroir qui revient.

  6 Copy quote

• On n'e chappe pas a' son sort. One cannot escape destiny.

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Son, Destiny

  6 Copy quote

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