Rene Char Quotes & Sayings

You only fight well for causes you yourself have shaped, with which you identify - and burn. — Rene Char

How did writing come to me? Like bird's down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended. — Rene Char

Be gful to the man who cares nothing for your remorse. You are his equal. — Rene Char

With my teeth
I have seized life
Upon the knife of my youth.
With my lips today,
With my lips alone ... — Rene Char

No man, unless he be dead in living, can feel at anchor in this life. — Rene Char

A poem is the realization of love ... — Rene Char

It is not whether your words or actions are tough or gentle; it is the spirit behind your actions and words that announces your inner state. — Rene Char

Children and geniuses know that there is no bridge, only the water that lets itself be crossed. — Rene Char

The poet advises: 'Read me. Read me again.'
He does not always come away unscathed from
his page, but like the poor, he knows how to
make use of an olive's eternity. — Rene Char

There is only the one like me, the companion man or woman, who can wake me from my torpor, set off the poetry, hurl me against the limits of the old desert for me to triumph over it. No other. Neither sky nor privileged earth, now things which set you to trembling.
Torch, I only waltz with that one. — Rene Char

What can be seductive about the eternal nothing is that the finest day is indifferently this one or any other like it. — Rene Char

LONG LIVE ...
This country is but a wish of the spirit, a counter-sepulcher.
In my country, tender proofs of spring and badly dressed birds are preferred to far-off goals.
Truth waits for dawn beside a candle. Window glass is neglected. To the watchful, what does it matter?
In my country, we don't question a man deeply moved.
There is no malignant shadow on the capsized boat.
A cool hello is unknown in my country.
We borrow only what can be returned increased.
There are leaves, many leaves, on the trees in my country. The branches are free to bear no fruits.
We don't believe in the good faith of the victor.
In my country, we say thank you. — Rene Char

I believe in the magic and in the authority of words — Rene Char

Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd. — Rene Char

For an inheritance to be really great, the hand of the defunct must not be seen. — Rene Char

Trust firmly in your luck, cling to your happiness, and dare to take risks. — Rene Char

A few beings are neither in society nor in a state of dreaming. They belong to an isolated fate, to an unknown hope. Their open acts seem anterior to time's first inculpation and to the skies' unconcern. It occurs to no one to employ them. The future melts before their gaze. They are the noblest and the most disquieting. — Rene Char

I believe in the magic and authority of words. — Rene Char

We are being torn apart between the avidity for knowing and the despair of having known. The goad will not renounce its sting and we our hope. — Rene Char

To be a poet is to have an appetite for a certain anxiety which, when tasted among the swirling sum of things existent or forfeit, causes, as the taste dies, joy. — Rene Char

Lucidity is the wound closest to the sun. — Rene Char

In the darkness of our lives, there is not one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty. — Rene Char

What comes into the world to disturb nothing merits neither attention nor patience — Rene Char

Develop your legitimate strangeness. — Rene Char

Companions in pathos,who barely murmur,go with your lamp spent and return the jewels. A new mystery sings in your bones. Cultivate your legitimate strangeness. — Rene Char

Each act is virgin, even the repeated ones. — Rene Char

Cheat at this game. — Rene Char

Eternity is not much longer than life. — Rene Char

A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proof. — Rene Char

Imagination consists in expelling from reality many incomplete persons, making use of the magical and subversive powers of desire, to obtain their return in the form of a completely satisfying presence. This, then, is the inextinguishable, uncreated reality. — Rene Char

Midnight is not in everyman's reach. — Rene Char

In my land we don't question someone who has been touched deeply.
There is no malign shadow over capsized boats. — Rene Char

The oriole entered the capital of dawn. The sword of his song closed the sad bed.
Everything forever ended. — Rene Char

Why did I become a writer? A bird's feather on my windowpane in winter and all at once there arose in my heart a battle of embers never to subside again. — Rene Char

Desire, desire which knows, we draw no advantage from our shadows except from some veritable sovereignties accompanied by invisible flames, invisible chains, which, coming to light, step after step, cause us to shine. — Rene Char

How can we live without the unknown before us? — Rene Char