Quotes from Philippe Besson

Today, I'd like to slap this seventeen-years old kid, not because of the grades but because of his incessant need to please those who would judge him

Desire does not go out like a match, it extinguishes slowly as it burns into ash.

He goes back to the books—this crazy number of books in the house neatly lined up or stacked in piles. All of a sudden I see a sort of admiration return to his face, but it's a painful admiration; what he likes about me is also what keeps me separate from him.

He groans, no longer able to contain it, a sound that he releases maybe without even realizing it himself; he moves me tremendously. As I've said, nothing in life moves me more than these moments of pure abandon, of self-oblivion.

Je sais que Thomas n'a consenti à cette unique photo que parce qu'il avait compris (décidé) que c'était notre dernier moment ensemble. Il sourit pour que j'emporte son sourire avec moi.

I say "courage," but it may be something else. Those who have not taken this step, who have not come to terms with themselves, are not necessarily frightened, they are perhaps helpless, disoriented, lost as one is in the middle of a forest that's too dark or dense or vast.

I'm in this state of one-way desire. I feel this desire swarming in my belly and running up my spine. But I have to constantly contain and compress it so that it doesn't betray me in front of others. Because I've already understood that desire is visible.

Finally, slowly, I raise my head and lean back on my elbows and take in the sight of him. I'm struck by his voracity. He's like a ravenous child who has just been given food and prefers to choke on it. I'm not sure where this need for another man's sex comes from but I sense that on the other side of all the repression and self-censoring there exists an equally powerful fever.

His was the first male sex I held in my hand, other than my own. My first kiss was the one he gave me. My first embrace, skin against skin, was with him.

I am an exemplary student, one who never misses a class, who almost always gets the best grades, who is the pride of his teachers.

We are alone in the world. I've never enjoyed the rain so much.

I wasn't looking for a diversion, or a way to soothe my pain. I wasn't looking for an alternative. I just gave in to the ease of it. That was all.

I add: It was then that we lost touch, he and I. These last words are articulated with the least possible affect, as if life is just like that sometimes, you spend time together and then lose touch and life goes on—as if there were no breaks from which you never quite recover.

And then over time, it dissipates, and fades, dispersing like pollen in the air at the return of spring. Lucas whispers: You get used to everything, even the defection of those you thought you were bound to forever.

I know that what I've written has probably given the impression that I was a haughty young boy, a bit too delicate for the world (and no doubt I was, at least in part). But looking back on it, I think it was simply a fear of crowds, their movements, the inherent potential to transform into a mob, that pushed me toward this misanthropy.

Because you will leave and we will stay.

Tout ça sentait les économies de bout de chandelle, pas la misère mais la médiocrité, ce qui est indéniablement beaucoup plus impardonnable.

Je voulais juste t'écrire que j'ai été heureux pendant ces mois que nous avons passés ensemble, que je n'ai jamais été aussi heureux, et que je sais déjà que je ne serai plus jamais aussi heureux.

No sé que nunca volveré a tener diecisiete años, no sé que la juventud vuela, que apenas dura un instante, que desaparece enseguida y cuando te das cuenta ya es demasiado tarde, ya se ha terminado, se ha volatilizado, la has perdido

C'était de l'amour évidemment. Et demain, ça sera un grand vide.

I've seen the wedding pictures, my mother put them in an album. She looks at them regularly, she must like to remember her youth. (Or else she confuses youth with happiness, as people frequently do.)

In any case, I like to repeat his name to myself in secret. I like to write it on scraps of paper. I am stupidly sentimental: that hasn't changed much.

I want to experience only the moment, not the looming certainty that I will lose that moment, not the certain awareness that, ultimately, this moment must slip from present to past, only the joy of the moment and the graze of memory.

I smile when he tells me the story. It's also the first time I've smiled at him. He smiles back at me. It seems as intimate to me, as magnetic, as skin against skin.