Claudel Quotes & Sayings

It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses since they usually cannot see beyond them. — Paul Claudel

Every birth is a getting to know. — Paul Claudel

Fergus Claudel Fraser, he said, slowly and clearly. — Diana Gabaldon

The priest has just baptized you a Christian with water; and I baptize you a Frenchman, daring child, with a dewdrop of champagne on your lips. — Paul Claudel

Art imitates nature not in its effects as such, but in its causes, in its 'manner,' in its process, which are nothing but a participation in and a derivation of actual objects, of the Art of God himself. — Paul Claudel

You promised to take care of me and not to turn your back on me. How is it possible that you never wrote to me even once and you never came back to see me? Do you think that it is fun for me to spend months, even years, without any news, without any hope! — Camille Claudel

In the end, there's no sort of difference between dying from ignorance and dying under the feet of thousands of men who have regained their freedom. You close your eyes, and then there's nothing anymore. And death is never difficult. It requires neither a hero nor a slave. It eats what it's served. — Philippe Claudel

I am not feeling any better because I cannot stay in bed, having constant cause for walking. They say I leave at night by the window of my tower, hanging from a red umbrella with which I set fire to the forest! — Camille Claudel

Eighty years old! No eyes left, no ears, no teeth, no legs, no wind! And when all is said and done, how astonishingly well one does without them. — Paul Claudel

Open your eyes! The world is still intact; it is as pristine as it was on the first day, as fresh as milk! — Paul Claudel

The only living socities are those which are animated by inequality and injustice. — Paul Claudel

It was the fear others felt, much more than hatred or some other emotion, that had made a victim of me. It was because fear had seized some of them by the throat that I was handed over to torturers and executioners, and it was also fear that had turned those same torturers, formerly men like me, into monsters; fear that had caused the seeds of evil, which we all carry, to germinate inside them. — Philippe Claudel

Time: all things consume it, love alone makes use of it. — Paul Claudel

How amazing it is to be alive Anyone who lives and breathes and puts both feet on the ground, What possible reason could he have for envying the gods — Paul Claudel

My countrymen have commissioned a bust of the Republic. It will be placed on the fountain of my native town. — Camille Claudel

I am scared; I don't know what is going to happen to me. What was the point of working so hard and of being talented, to be rewarded like this? Never a penny, tormented all my life. It is horrible; one cannot imagine it. — Camille Claudel

In a word, poetry can not exist without emotion, or, if you will, without a movement of the soul which regulates the words. — Paul Claudel

All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable. — Paul Claudel

You find me at work; excuse the dust on my blouse. I sculpt my marble myself. — Camille Claudel

I don't want to say anything because I know I am unable to protect you from the harm that I see. — Camille Claudel

I have fallen into an abyss. I live in a world so curious, so strange. Of the dream that was my life, this is my nightmare. — Camille Claudel

If you are nice, and keep your promise, we will be in paradise. — Camille Claudel

In a novel, language is your principal tool, you try to build pictures in the mind of the reader. When you write a screenplay, the language is just a transition, the final goal is a picture on the screen, it's the only thing the audience sees. — Philippe Claudel

Gentlemen, in the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of Champagne. — Paul Claudel

Last night, two men tried to force my shutters. I recognized them: they are two of Rodin's Italian models. He told them to kill me. I am in his way; he wants to get rid of me. — Camille Claudel

Saintliness is very odd. When people encounter it, they often take it for something else, something completely unlike it: indifference, mockery, scheming, coldness, insolence, perhaps even contempt. But they're mistaken, and that makes them furious. They commit an awful crime. This is doubtless the reason why most saints end up as martyrs. — Philippe Claudel

Sir Rodin convinced my parents to have me committed; they are all in Paris to arrange it. — Camille Claudel

There are two ways to shine: to reflect light or produce it. — Paul Claudel

My work is very controlled. I leave nothing to chance. Chance comes afterward ... Making a film is like cooking a pot au feu. You choose the best carrots, the best potatoes the best meat, etc., and you throw all that together - but if there's no soul, so to speak, it won't yield much. — Philippe Claudel

You explain nothing, O poet, but thanks to you all things become explicable. — Paul Claudel

I have all sorts of problems and feel discouraged. — Camille Claudel

Intelligence is nothing without delight. — Paul Claudel

I think about the sincerity of my writing. I try to be true, to pose questions. Shake people up a bit and make them look in a direction they wouldn't normally. — Philippe Claudel

It's always been difficult for me to speak and express my innermost thoughts. I prefer to write. When I sit down and write, words grow very docile, they come and feed out of my hand like little birds, and I can do almost what I want with them; whereas when I try to marshal them in open air, they fly away from me. — Philippe Claudel

I like speed in thrillers. It's a rhythm adapted to the subject. — Philippe Claudel

I thank you for your kind invitation to introduce me to the president of the Republic. Since I have not been out of my atelier for two months, I have no appropriate costume for this circumstance. Please excuse me. — Camille Claudel

Why did I, like thousands of others, have to carry a cross I hadn't chosen, a cross which was not made for my shoulders and which didn't concern me? Who decided to come rummaging around in my obscure existence, invade my gray anonymity, my meager tranquility, and bowl me like a little ball in a great game of skittles? God? Well, in that case, if He exists, if He really exists, let Him hide His face. Let Him put His two hands on His head, and let Him bow down. It may be, as Peiper used to teach us, that many men are unworthy of Him, but now I know that He, too, is unworthy of most of us, and that if the creature is capable of producing horror, it's solely because his Creator has slipped him the recipe for it. — Philippe Claudel

You see that it is not at all like Rodin ... I share these only with you, don't show them. — Camille Claudel

We must not seek happiness in peace, but in conflict. — Paul Claudel

I tolerate my faults but not at all other people's. — Camille Claudel

When you live among the flowers, you don't think about the mud. — Philippe Claudel

I'm not imprisoned in any one medium. In films I use techniques that are not necessarily what other directors attempt. When I write novels I also use techniques which can run counter to those that a novelist would use. — Philippe Claudel

While she was working on Maturity, ... M. Rodin is well aware that people have imagined that he did my sculpture why then do all one can to give credence to these lies. — Paul Claudel

I took all my wax studies and threw them in the fire ... that's the way it is when something unpleasant happens to me. I take my hammer and I squash a figure. — Camille Claudel

Now I know that at the heart of the universe is joy. — Paul Claudel

Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with His Presence. — Paul Claudel

When you left on Saturday, I felt a horrible void, I saw you everywhere, on the beach, in your room, in the garden: impossible for me to get used to the idea that you had left. — Camille Claudel

Doctor, do you think it could have been the sausage? — Paul Claudel

An artist is someone who feels the vibrations of the world and tries to transcribe them through his medium. — Philippe Claudel

Truth has nothing to do with the number of people it convinces. — Paul Claudel

Send me one hundred francs on our future deals, otherwise I will disappear in a cataclysm. — Camille Claudel

I have had the problem of seeing my male model go to Italy and ... stay there. — Camille Claudel

Oh little Poupchette, some may tell you that you are nobody's child, a child of defilement, a child begotten in fear and horror. Some may tell you that you are a child of abomination conceived in abomination, a tainted child, a child polluted long before you were born. Do not pay attention to them, my little sweetheart, please do not listen to them; listen to me. I say you are my child and I love you. I sometimes say that out of horror, beauty and purity and grace are born. I say I am your father for ever. I say the loveliest rose can bloom in contaminated soil. I say you are the dawn, the light of all my tomorrows, and the only thing that matters is the promise you represent. I say you are my luck and my forgiveness. My darling Poupchette, I say you are my whole life. — Philippe Claudel

When man tries to imagine Paradise on earth, the immediate result is a very respectable Hell. — Paul Claudel

They shall arrive in a murmur
And shall disappear into fog and earth — Philippe Claudel

I would have preferred to be successful here with a piece that cost me a huge amount of money and effort ... rather than sending to Bohemia some ordinary works. — Camille Claudel

I sleep completely naked to make me believe you are here, but when I wake up it is not the same thing. Most of all, don't deceive me with other women any more. — Camille Claudel

I would prefer to have a more appealing job. If I could still change careers, I would prefer it. This unfortunate art is made for long beards and ugly faces rather than for a relatively well-endowed woman. — Camille Claudel

Eating Out Alone"
The loneliness inside me is a place,
Harvard where no one might always be someone.
When we're alone people we run from change
to the mysterious and beautiful
I am eating alone at a small white table,
visible, ignored ... the moment that tries the soul,
an explorer going blind in polar whiteness.
Yet everyone who is seated is a lay,,
or Paul Claudel, at the next table declaiming:
"L'Academie Groton, eh, c'est une ecole des cochons."
He soars from murdered English to killing French,
no word unheard, no sentence understood
a vocabulary to mortify Racine ...
the minotaur steaming in a maze of eloquence — Robert Lowell

I have been back in Paris for two weeks. Nothing new. Life is still bitter. — Camille Claudel

You know what black hatred women feel toward me as soon as they see me, until I return inside my shell, they use every possible weapon. As soon as a generous man tries to help me out, a woman is here to hold his arm and prevent him from acting. — Camille Claudel

Madhouses are houses made on purpose to cause suffering ... I cannot stand any longer the screams of these creatures. — Camille Claudel

I am in no mood to be deceived any longer by the crafty devil and false character whose greatest pleasure is to take advantage of everyone. — Camille Claudel

You stole it all! My youth, my work! Everything! — Camille Claudel

There is always something missing that torments me. — Camille Claudel

Speak about Christ only when you are asked. But live so that people ask about Christ! — Paul Claudel

It is in fact agreed that I am the plague, the cholera of the benevolent and generous men who are interested in art and that, when I show myself with my plasters, even the Emperor of the Sahara would flee. — Camille Claudel

Don't fear anything for your letters, they are burnt one by one and I hope you do the same with mine. — Camille Claudel

I will never forget my beautiful days with you in Shanklin, they are certainly the most pleasant ones of my life. Look, I have tears in my eyes just to think about it. I am furious to be here, it is the end of happiness for a whole year. — Camille Claudel

Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology.
Snappy dresser, though. — Kathy Reichs

The words I use Are everyday words and yet are not the same! You will find no rhymes in my verse, no magic. There are your very own phrases. — Paul Claudel

I baptize thee, Germain Alexander Claudel MacKenzie Fraser, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen. — Diana Gabaldon

It's the comedies and thrillers that are successful. People love horror, but in thrillers. Once you speak of pain and suffering it's a different matter. — Philippe Claudel

Most of all people respond to a film tackling grave subjects that question and go against the prevailing mood. — Philippe Claudel

They try to force me to sculpt here. They don't succeed, so they make trouble for me. — Camille Claudel