Muriel Barbery Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

Art Assumption Cats Children Dying Emotions Eternity

In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

Muriel Barbery

Lying, Believe, Mirrors

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Talent consists not in inventing shapes but in causing those that were invisible to emerge.

Muriel Barbery

Shapes, Talent, Invisible

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Art is emotion without desire.

Muriel Barbery

Art, Desire, Emotion

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, 2006.

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To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things.

Muriel Barbery

Adequate, Forgiven, Vulgarity

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.34, Gallic Books

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Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time...When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Greatness, Soul

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or the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you're saying until you're faced with a real "never again."

Muriel Barbery

Real, Awful, Firsts

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Morning, Lying, Mean

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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As always, I am saved by the inability of living creatures to believe anything that might cause the walls of their little mental assumptions to crumble.

Muriel Barbery

Wall, Believe, Inability

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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How to measure a life's worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.

Muriel Barbery

Important, Dying, One Day

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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If you want to heal Heal others And smile or weep At this very happy reversal of fate

Muriel Barbery

Fate, Want, Heal

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.229, Gallic Books

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I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world." - Paloma

Muriel Barbery

World, Moments, This World

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In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured. A few bars of music, rising from an unfamiliar place, a touch of perfection in the flow of human dealings - I lean my head slowly to one side, reflect on the camellia on the moss on the temple, reflect on a cup of tea, while outside the wind is rustling foliage, the forward rush of life is crystalized in a brilliant jewel of a moment that knows neither projects nor future, human destiny is rescued from the pale succession of days, glows with light at last and, surpassing time, warms my tranquil heart.

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Destiny, Jewels

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

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Don't worry Renee, I won't commit suicide and I won't burn a thing. Because from now on, for you, I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world.

Muriel Barbery

Suicide, Worry, World

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Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed.

Muriel Barbery

Sleep, Cat, Autumn

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Self, Serenity, Solitude

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Mean, Track, Dying

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If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.

Muriel Barbery

Inspiring, Friends, Wells

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, 2008.

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I'm afraid to go into myself and see what's going on in there.

Muriel Barbery

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, www.e-reading.club. September 2, 2013.

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Spring, Book, Reading

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.39, Gallic Books

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Yes, our eyes may perceive, yet they do not observe; they may believe, yet they do not question; they may receive yet they do not search: they are emptied of desire, with neither hunger nor passion.

Muriel Barbery

Believe, Passion, Eye

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were able to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.

Muriel Barbery

Crazy, Mirrors, People

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Thinking, Tree, Feelings

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, 2008.

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Do you know that it is in your company that I have had my finest thoughts?

Muriel Barbery

Finest, Company, Knows

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

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We can be friends. We can be anything we want to be.

Muriel Barbery

Want

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.242, Gallic Books

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The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one's mouth that brings with it every pleasure. . . . a tomato, an adventure.

Muriel Barbery

Adventure, Simple, Garden

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Born: May 28, 1969
Occupation: Novelist
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