French Novelist Quotations

Success is a process, a quality of mind and way of being, an outgoing affirmation of life.

Marriage, in life, is like a duel in the midst of a battle.

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day.

It was in the Papal States that I studied the Roman Question. I traveled over every part of the country; I conversed with men of all opinions, examined things very closely, and collected my information on the spot.

Success is not a place at which one arrives but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey.

I have been further enlightened by the conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whom I would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger.

Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?

Oh, the miraculous energy that flows between two people who care enough to get beyond surfaces and games, who are willing to take the risks of being totally open, of listening, of responding with the whole heart. How much we can do for each other.

But as the Pope has a long arm, which might reach me in France, I have gone a little out of the way to tell him the plain truths contained in these pages.

I love Germany so dearly that I hope there will always be two of them.

The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.

The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

The artist must be in his work like God in his Creation, invisible and all-powerful, so that he is felt everywhere but not seen.

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it is a proof that it should be rejected.

To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.

All over the land are vast and handsome pastures, with good grass for cattle, and it strikes me the soil would be very fertile were the country inhabited and improved by reasonable people.

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.