Jean-Philippe Toussaint Quotes & Sayings

For where books, for instance, always offer a thousand times more than they are, television offers exactly what it is, its essential immediacy, its ever-evolving, always-in-progress superficiality. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

And yet that's the best way to watch television actively: with your eyes closed. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

In the fight between you and reality, be discouraging. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

For the painful essence of withdrawal does not reside in the present suffering it brings - withdrawal is painless on the level of the immediate moment - but in the prospect of suffering to come, the rich future that one can imagine one's torture enjoying. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

She misunderstood my method, in my opinion, not realizing that my approach, rather obscure to those unfamiliar, was based on the idea that in my struggle with reality, I could exhaust any opponent with whom I was grappling, like one can wear out an olive, for example, before successfully stabbing it with a fork, and that my propensity not to hasten matters, far from having a negative effect, in fact prepared for me a fertile ground where, when things seemed ripe, I could make my move with ease. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

The chances of seeing an idea through to completion are inversely proportional to the time you've spent talking about it beforehand. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint