Muriel Barbery Quotes - Page 2

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Art Assumption Cats Children Dying Emotions Eternity

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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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.

Muriel Barbery

Stupid, Intelligent, Thinking

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

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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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...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence.

Muriel Barbery

Silence, Needs, Inward

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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.

Muriel Barbery

Daughter, Gratitude, Men

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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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Art is emotion without desire.

Muriel Barbery

Art, Desire, Emotion

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

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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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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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'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late.

Muriel Barbery

Lying, Believe, Adults

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

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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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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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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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Because beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death.

Muriel Barbery

Movement, Ephemeral, Moments

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

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..if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?

Muriel Barbery

Today, Causes, Becoming

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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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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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It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin C, however much they nurture us, cannot save lives, or sustain our souls.

Muriel Barbery

Soul, Insecurity, Would Be

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

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So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I'd better not miss it, because once you're dead, it's too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

Muriel Barbery

Regret, Mistake, Missing

"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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