Fabre Quotes & Sayings

Fabre stood up. He placed his fingertips on d'Anton's temples. "Put your fingers here," he said. "Feel the resonance. Put them here, and here." He jabbed at d'Anton's face: below the cheekbones, at the side of his jaw. "I'll teach you like an actor," he said. "This city is our stage."
Camille said: "Book of Ezekiel. 'This city is the cauldron, and we the flesh' ..."
Fabre turned. "This stutter," he said. "You don't have to do it." Camille put his hands over his eyes. "Leave me alone," he said. "Even you." Fabre's face was incandescent. "Even you, I am going to teach." He leapt forward, wrenched Camille upright in his chair. He took him by the shoulders and shook him. "You're going to talk properly," Fabre said. "Even if it kills one of us." Camille put his hands protectively over his head. Fabre continued to perpetrate violence; d'Anton was too tired to intervene. — Hilary Mantel

Science too proceeds by lantern-flashes; it explores nature's inexhaustible mosiac piece by piece. Too often the wick lacks oil; the glass panes of the lantern may not be clean. No matter : his work is not in vain who first recognizes and shows to others one speck of the vast unknown. — Jean-Henri Fabre

We have within us, from the start, that which will distinguish us from the vulgar herd. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Don't let a storm keep you from counting on what Jesus has told you. — Sheila Walsh

There are no second acts. But I still believe there are, from time to time. — Dominique Fabre

Messengers wait outside the door, to carry urgent orders for release. It is difficult, when the pen skips over a name, to associate it with the corpse it might belong to, tomorrow or the day after that. There is no sense of evil in the room, just tiredness and the aftertaste of petty squabbling. Camille drinks quite a lot of Fabre's brandy. Towards daybreak, a kind of dismal camaraderie sets in. — Hilary Mantel

Bryn looked from Halt to Horace and back again. He saw no pity in either face.
"I don't want to," he said in a very small voice. Horace found it hard to reconcile this cringing figure with the sneering bully who had been making his life hell for the past few months. Halt appeared to consider Bryn's statement.
"We'll note your protest," he said cheerfully. "Now continue, please. — John Flanagan

You can lock a lion up in a room, if you want to, but you'll still hear it growling and clawing to get out. — K. Martin Beckner

In her excellent, entirely readable Richard Wright, Hazel Rowley accomplishes what [previous biographer] Michel Fabre would have liked to do with once-guarded letters, aging witnesses, previously unidentified girlfriends ... Mostly, Rowley concentrates on telling Wright's very powerful story. — Darryl Pinckney

God is where there are no 'fees' being charged, where there is no botheration and where there is no scolding; that is where God is. — Dada Bhagwan

I was given no special information by the White House, or by anybody else, for that matter. — Jeff Gannon

History records the names of royal bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. — Jean-Henri Fabre

In many cases, ignorance is a good thing : the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggested by one's reading. I have experienced this once again ... Yes, ignorance can have its advantages; the new is found far from the beaten track. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Let us dig our furrow in the fields of the commonplace. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Theologically, the creation of chocolate demonstrates both the unity and the diversity of humanity. Wherever you taste it, in every country of the world, it is immediately recognizable. Other things, in every cuisine, are just food, but chocolate is chocolate. — David Augsburger

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form ... The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.
[Referring to studying fossil remains of the weevil, largely unchanged to the present day.] — Jean-Henri Fabre

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past. — Jean-Henri Fabre

History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the king's bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. — Jean-Henri Fabre

This day's nothingness
as if from spite
became a flame
and scorched the lips
of children and poets. — Adam Zagajewski

You speak to me, in your own fashion, of a strange psychology which is able to reconcile the wonders of a master craftsmanship with aberrations due to unfathomable stupidity. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Let us turn elsewhere, to the wasps and bees, who unquestionably come first in the laying up of a heritage for their offspring. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Your heart may be paltry compared with the heart of a great saint, but your heart is what God wants from you. — Peter Kreeft

The mind is an activity, not a repository. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Seek those who find your road agreeable, your personality and mind stimulating, your philosophy acceptable, and your experience helpful. Let those who do not, seek their own kind. — Jean-Henri Fabre

People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the matter very closely. They seem able to dispense with the conscientious observer's scruples, when inflating their bladder of theory. — Jean-Henri Fabre

The custom of eating the lover after consummination of the nuptials, of making a meal of the exhausted pigmy, who is henceforth good for nothing, is not so difficult to understand, since insects can hardly be accused of sentimentality; but to devour him during the act surpasses anything the most morbid mind could imagine. I have seen the thing with my own eyes, and I have not yet recovered from my surprise. — Jean-Henri Fabre

Fabre looked up, his mobile face composed. "Good-bye," he said. "Georges-Jacques
study law. Law is a weapon. — Hilary Mantel

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity. — Jean-Henri Fabre

What matters in learning is not to be taught, but to wake up. — Jean-Henri Fabre

How perfectly whimsical. I expect we'll be roasting marshmallows over the fireplace and singing happy sing-alongs round about midnight, yes? Perhaps someone could point me in the direction of the dormitories. — G. Norman Lippert

I resent you - " Robespierre said. His words were lost. "The People," he shouted, "are everywhere good, and if they obstruct the Revolution - even, for example, at Toulon - we must blame their leaders."
"What are you going on about this for?" Danton asked him.
Fabre launched himself from the wall. "He is trying to enunciate a doctrine," he shrieked. "He thinks the time has come for a bloody sermon."
"If only," Robespierre yelled, "there were more vertu."
"More what?"
"Vertu. Love of one's country. Self-sacrifice. Civic spirit."
"One appreciates your sense of humor, of course." Danton jerked his thumb in the direction of the noise. "The only vertu those bastards understand is the kind I demonstrate every night to my wife. — Hilary Mantel

A book feels true when it feels true," she said to him, impatiently. "A book's true when you can say, 'Yeah! That's just how damn people behave all the time. — John Irving

The Republic is six months old, and it's flying apart. It has no cohesive force - only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together - then we can win the war."
Danton shook his head.
"Winners make money," Dumouriez said. "I thought you went where the pickings were richest?"
"I shall maintain the Republic," Danton said.
"Why?"
"Because it is the only honest thing there is."
"Honest? With your people in it?"
"It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert - but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in '89."
"In '89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now - now he's got money and power, now he's famous. Ask him now if he's willing to die."
"It has Robespierre."
"Oh yes - Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter's daughter, I don't doubt. — Hilary Mantel

... I could feel a nostalgia for the evening already setting in, a longing for the existence of this night building before my eyes. — Deirdre Shaw

If there is one vegetable which is God-given, it is the haricot bean. — Jean-Henri Fabre

So slow is moral progress. True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is not one rung the higher for it all. One would even say that, the farther we proceed in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes. The most advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn. — Jean-Henri Fabre