Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt Quotes & Sayings

You have to really use your imagination to refresh your daily life. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

When I start a book, it's every day. There is no Saturday, no Sunday. It's every day, because if I stop one day, I'm afraid of losing the book and losing the energy. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I have some beautiful 20th-century drawings and a few paintings, but I'm not a collector, and I'm not particularly attached to objects. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Your love for her belongs to you. It's yours. Even if she refuses it, she cannot change it. She isn't benefiting from it, thats all. What you give, Momo, is yours forever. What you keep is lost for all time!"-Monsieur Ibrahim — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I can spend the day without writing or reading, but I can't spend a day without listening to music. I listen to music on a Walkman; it's from the 19th century, I know. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I wanted to become a director before I wanted to become a writer. When I was 10, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, 'Walt Disney.' I wanted to make films. But I wasn't offered a camera. I was offered language. So I started telling stories in the theatre and then in my novels. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I don't like apartments - the idea of other people living, copulating and defecating above me - they make me feel as trapped as a slice of ham in a sandwich. When I was a student in Paris, I always rented attics right at the top of buildings, and as soon as I was making enough money, I bought houses. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Everything in life can be tiring and tiresome if we don't have the ability to look at it as if it's the first time we've ever done it. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Balthazar Balsan is not a self-portrait. If he was, I'd have made the character more flattering. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

No, you're mistaken. Not 'What filthy weather' but 'It's a fine rainy day. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Monsieur Ibrahim: To find out if a country is rich or poor, look at the bins. If there are bins and no rubbish, it's rich. If there's rubbish by the bins, it's neither rich nor poor... it's touristy. And if there's rubbish but no bins, then it's poor. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

What you give, Momo, is yours forever. What you keep is lost for all time. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I consider a house without books or a piano to be unfurnished. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I really enjoy spending Sunday evenings with friends, because Sunday evenings are always frightening. You are obsessed by the fact that you are working again the next day. And sometimes you get the blues. I always decide to spend it with friends. It's very nice. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I find mirrors detestable; I dislike seeing myself. Of course, there's a mirror in the bathroom, but it's a magnifying one for shaving. Photographs are fine, but I don't like mirrors because they take you by surprise. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

In Brussels, you are able to have a lot of appointments in a day. In Paris, you can have one, two, maybe three, but you spend all your time on the road, in the car or in the suburbs. In Brussels, everything is easy. It's not a very big city, and the people are very quiet and warm. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

I am not married anymore. I hate marriage ... but it's okay now. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Women are pleasing because they come to us wrapped in the catkin of an enigma and they cease to please when they lose their intrigue.Do women believe that men are only interested in what's between their legs? That would be an error.:men are more attracted by a woman's romantic side than by her sexuality. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

She had pronounced the words "New Books" with caution and regret, articulating them reluctantly, as if they were vulgar, even obscene words. As I listened to her, I realised that that it was indeed a commercial term, used to designate an item in fashion, but inappropriate to define a literary work; I also realised that to her eyes I was nothing but an author of 'New Books' a supplier in a way. "But novels by Daudet or Maupassant - weren't they 'New Books' when they came out?" I asked.

"Time has given them their place", she replied, as though I had just said something insolent. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Momo: [reading Ibrahim's will] This is my will and testament. I, Ibrahim Demirdji, hereby leave all my goods to Moses Schmitt, my son Momo because he chose me as his father and because I've given him everything I've learned in this life. Now you too will know what's in my Koran, Momo. It's all there is to know. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

That day, she became categorically certain of two things: that he annoyed her, profoundly, and, if she could, she would never leave him. — Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt