Francoise Quotes & Sayings

And you, you're an angel,' he said, scornfully, 'but an angel from a hot place. Since I'm the devil, that makes you one of my subjects. I think I'll brand you. — Francoise Gilot

We mustn't be afraid of inventing anything ... Everething there is in us exists in nature. After all, we're part of nature. If it resembles nature, that's fine. If it doesn't, what of it? When man wanted to invent something as useful as the human foot, he invented the wheel, which he used to transport himself and his burdens. The fact that the wheel doesn't have the slightest resemblance to the human foot is hardly a criticism of it. — Francoise Gilot

Happiness is always subject to slander. — Francoise Sagan

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place. — Francoise Sagan

After Proust, there are certain things that simply cannot be done again. He marks off for you the boundaries of your talent. — Francoise Sagan

Sin is not so sinful as hypocrisy. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

We are born crying, and for good reason,' he reflected. 'And the rest of our lives is bound to be a muted reiteration of that cry. — Francoise Sagan

I was thinking that I should be content to kiss him until the break of day. Bertrand ran out of kisses too soon; desire made them superfluous in his eyes. They were only a stage on the road to pleasure, not something inexhaustible and self-sufficient, as Luc had revealed them to me. — Francoise Sagan

The human creature, humiliated and offended in ways that are inconceivable to the mind and heart, defies the blind and deaf divinity. — Francoise Mauriac

Love lasts about seven years. That's how long it takes for the cells of the body to totally replace themselves. — Francoise Sagan

You have to admit that most women who do something with their lives have been disliked by almost everyone. — Francoise Gilot

My grandmother's death had given me a heightened sense of individual solitude, of each one of us walking towards his own death, with no one able to help us or hold us back. — Francoise Gilot

Writing takes a pen, a sheet of paper and, to start with, just the shadow of an idea. — Francoise Sagan

If you don't have imagination you're lost. But it's a virtue that's becoming increasingly rare, especially in its higher form: spontaneity. Mad, happy spontaneity. — Francoise Sagan

People respect unhappiness and find it especially hard to forgive success. — Francoise Sagan

I don't think there's any intrinsic difference between a lover and a husband ... If I were cynical, I would say that a woman should have both a good husband and a lover. But I'm not cynical so I'll just say that a woman should have a lover who's a good husband and a husband who's a good lover, perhaps both. — Francoise Sagan

Comics are actually dubbed by euphemistic label of graphic novel, which became a big deal. — Francoise Mouly

The heart of the problem, I soon came to understand, was that with Pablo there must always be a victor and a vanquished. I could not be satisfied with being a victor, nor, I think, could anyone who is emotionally mature. There was nothing gained by being vanquished either, because with Pablo, the moment you were vanquished he lost all interest. Since I loved him, I couldn't afford to be vanquished. What does one do in a dilemma like that? — Francoise Gilot

Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before. — Francoise Sagan

No one is more conventional than a woman who is falling out of love. — Francoise Sagan

No one ever has time to examine himself honestly, and most people look no further than their neighbors' eyes, in which they may see their own reflection. — Francoise Sagan

I don't write diaries and things like that, but I have a fantastic memory. I call that like a magic carpet. I can really concentrate and travel back in the past I don't know how many years from now and evoke that space if I wanted. — Francoise Gilot

Comics are a gateway into literature. — Francoise Mouly

Life has confirmed for me the thoughts and impressions I had when I was 18, as if it was all intuition. — Francoise Sagan

Then we'll take the train to Paris tonight. There is a night train, isn't there? We'll catch it at Cannes. — Francoise Sagan

Delicacy is to love what grace is to beauty. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

When man, Apollo man, rockets into space, it isn't in order to find his brother, I'm quite sure of that. It's to confirm that he hasn't any brothers. — Francoise Sagan

What I like about the American woman is she usually has a lot of dynamism. In the U.S., women have a tendency to go forward, to be more exaggerated than in Europe. Many times the rough ideas come from the States, then they are refined in Europe. The American women and the French women are still the best-dressed. — Francoise Gilot

The image by Barry Blitt of Barack Obama and Michelle in the White House with him dressed as a terrorist, her dressed as an Angela Davis character, a flag burning in the chimney, a portrait of Bin Laden on the wall is an image I'm extremely proud of. — Francoise Mouly

Philosophy may raise us above grandeur, but nothing can elevate us above the ennui which accompanies it. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure. — Francoise Bertaut De Motteville

You see, for me a painting is a dramatic action in the course of which the reality finds itself split apart. For me, that dramatic action takes precedence over all other considerations. The pure plastic act is only secondary as far as I'm concerned. What counts is the drama of that plastic art, the moment at which the universe comes out of itself and meets its own destruction. — Francoise Gilot

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter. — Francoise Sagan

Every time I see a film about Joan of Arc I'm convinced she'll get away with it. It's the only way to get through life. — Francoise Sagan

He lifted me up and held me close against him, my head on his shoulder. At that moment I loved him. In the morning light he was as golden, as soft, as gentle as myself, and he would protect me. — Francoise Sagan

Possessing faith is not convenient. You still have to live it. — Francoise Mallet-Joris

Looking for pleasure is the best way to ensure you won't find it. — Francoise Sagan

Really, one has some friends, and when one comes to think about it it is impossible to tell how one ever became friendly with them. — Francoise Mallet-Joris

Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework. — Francoise Sagan

Indeed, woman can be a machine run wild, or a machine can be a better, more subjugated, and efficient woman. — Francoise Meltzer

I think the best way to waste time is to try to save time. — Francoise Sagan

When you make a decision to write according to a set schedule and really stick to it, you find yourself writing very fast. At least I do. — Francoise Sagan

I feel sorry for men. They have more problems than women, because they now have to compete with women. — Francoise Sagan

It is with many enterprises as with striking fire; we do not meet with success except by reiterated efforts, and often at the instant when we despaired of success. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

Nothing brings on jealousy like laughter. — Francoise Sagan

The art editor in charge of the covers at the 'New Yorker' is Francoise Mouly. She's very familiar with the eccentricities and personalities of cartoonists, so working with her is very easy. — Adrian Tomine

Desire can be as fragile as it is sudden. — Francoise Giroud

Since I realized that he (Picasso) lived in a self-enclosed world and that his solitude was therefore total, I wanted to explore my own solitude. — Francoise Gilot

The happiness is real, and the love is not. — Francoise Sagan

You're trying to swim upstream against the current. What is there about the natural flow of the river of life that has shocked you so strongly that you should want to swim against the current, even against time? You ought to know you're lost even before you begin. I don't understand you but I love you and I suppose you are obeying the law of your being. — Francoise Gilot

You can domesticate your body, but you can't domesticate your face - even by having a lift or having your nose bobbed. A face bears the reflection of our nature, which in the beginning is veiled by the attractiveness of youth. But as soon as youth begins to go, everything written on the face starts to come to the surface, and pretty soon it's engraved there. No landscape can equal a human face that's been molded by its own owner. — Francoise Giroud

It isn't common sense that is paramount in this world, it's wishful thinking. — Francoise Sagan

I recognize limitations in the sense that I've read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare ... Aside from that I don't think of limiting myself. — Francoise Sagan

The number of times she'd said "wait and see" to herself in her thirty years of existence was way beyond counting. — Francoise Sagan

She'd like to be indispensable; that's what every woman wants ... — Francoise Sagan

Being a professional ... is making fewer mistakes than others, as few as possible. — Francoise Giroud

There are moments when you feel trapped, ill at ease. A year later the same feeling can turn out to be the theme of a book. — Francoise Sagan

Neither one of them hesitated to translate feeling into action, when an opportunity arose. — Francoise Sagan

A Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me but now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else. — Francoise Sagan

He knew this euphoria of hers: it was the euphoria of being alone. — Francoise Sagan

Marriage? It's like asparagus eaten with vinaigrette or hollandaise, a matter of taste but of no importance. — Francoise Sagan

...replying with a smile to the silent question asked by all small babies: "Who on earth are you? — Francoise Heritier

Every time I change wives I should burn the last one. That way I'd be rid of them. They wouldn't be around to complicate my existence. Maybe, that would bring back my youth, too. You kill the woman and you wipe out the past she represents. — Pablo Picasso

It amused me to think that one can tell the truth when one is drunk and nobody will believe it. — Francoise Sagan

Advisors are generally brilliant theoreticians but wretched practitioners. — Francoise Giroud

You can't help putting a lot of yourself into the image and when it's printed the reader can spend hours getting it out. — Francoise Mouly

Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus. — Francoise Sagan

For what are we looking for if not to please? I do not know if the desire to attract others comes from a superabundance of vitality, possessiveness, or the hidden, unspoken need to be reassured. — Francoise Sagan

I never get bored. There isn't enough time in the day for me. — Francoise Hardy

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. — Francoise Sagan

Nothing is more difficult than competing with a myth — Francoise Giroud

I remember being in a comic shop with my son, with my ten year-old son and he put his hand over my eyes. He was embarrassed about me seeing the comics at Forbidden Planet. — Francoise Mouly

Summer fell upon Paris, with everyone still intently following his own subterranean course of passion or habit and looking up like a startled creature of the night at the blazing June sun. Now, all of a sudden, there was an impelling necessity to go away, to give a continuation or a meaning to the winter that had just gone by. — Francoise Sagan

All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me. — Francoise Sagan

Nature does not loathe virtue: it is unaware of its existence. — Francoise Mallet-Joris

There is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful. — Francoise Sagan

What he does not yet understand is that whatever makes a woman strong is the reason that certain men will love her, even if behind her strengths there hide great weaknesses. This he will learn from You. He will learn that You are bubbly, funny, and sweet only because You have all Your weaknesses. But by then it will be too late. — Francoise Sagan

I really think that if I had met Picasso during peacetime, nothing would have happened. — Francoise Gilot

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read. — Francoise Sagan

We are torn between the craving to know and the despair of having known. — Francoise Sagan

What we love we may also despise. — Francoise Sagan

Houses are for private living, for friends, and for dogs. — Francoise Sagan

A love affair based on jealousy is doomed from the start ... It is certanly a sign of love, but it's a sign that it's already dying. — Francoise Sagan

There was a French singer, Francoise Hardy - I used to look at her pictures and try to dress like her. — Carly Simon

For what Luc was in fact proposing was just a game, an enticing game, but, even so, one that could destroy my undoubtedly quite genuine feelings for Bertrand; and it could destroy something else within me, something ill-defined but fiercely felt, which, whether I liked it or not, was opposed to transience. Or, at the very least, to the intentionally transient nature of what Luc what was offering. And then, even if I was able to conceive of any passion or liaison as being short-lived, I couldn't accept in advance that it had to be that way. Like any individual for whom life is a series of charades, I could bear the charades only if they were written by me, and by me alone. — Francoise Sagan

Only by pursuing the extremes in one's nature, with all its contradictions, appetites, aversions, rages, can one hope to understand a little ... oh, I admit only a very little ... of what life is about. — Francoise Sagan

crossed the dining room and — Francoise Bourdin

What you call types of mind are only mental ages. — Francoise Sagan

Three-fourths of all marriages are unhappy. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

No one, but no one, ever behaves 'well' in bed unless they love or are loved - two conditions seldom fulfilled. — Francoise Sagan

Curiosity is the beginning of wisdom. — Francoise Sagan

Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Francoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.) — Pamela Druckerman

Don't imagine you could ever take my place.' I told her I had never wanted to; I only wanted to occupy the one that was empty. — Francoise Gilot

He was stabbed by memory, that tyrant which impinges upon our dreams and leaps at out throat as soon as we awaken. — Francoise Sagan

Thirty-year-old children who refused to act like grown-ups. — Francoise Sagan

We make our own symbols, after the event has passed and begun to spoil. — Francoise Sagan

No one is indispensable to anyone else. You imagine you're necessary to him or that he will be very unhappy if you leave him, but I'm sure that if you do, within three months he will have fitted another face into your role and you'll see that no one is suffering because of your absence. You must feel free to do whatever feels best to you. Being someone's nurse is no way to live unless you're unable to do anything else. You have to say something on your own and you ought to be thinking, first and foremost, about that. — Francoise Gilot

Pity is an agreeable sentiment, uplifting like military music. — Francoise Sagan

Woman softens her own troubles by generously solacing those of others. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

Environmentalists believe that monolithic solutions - be they in the auto, nuclear, or genetics field - are doomed to fail and lead only along the path to dependence. They feel rather that it is far more sensible to approach the future by opening up more possibilities. Likewise, polyamorists believe that monogamy sterilizes love and fosters unhealthy codependence, whereas multiple relationships feed off of each other's differences and ultimately lead to an enriching fulfillment. — Francoise Simpere