Quotes from Georges Simenon

A novelist is a man who doesn't like his mother.

If your vision of the world is of a certain kind you will put poetry in everything, necessarily.

If each one of us could make just one other happy, the whole world would know happiness.

I am at home everywhere, and nowhere. I am never a stranger and I never quite belong.

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little - and out comes, not water but ink.

I adore life but I dont fear death. I just prefer to die as late as possible.

The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.

We live in a time when writers do not always have barriers around them

Era vero. In quel momento tutto era vero, perché viveva ogni cosa cosi come veniva, senza chiedersi niente, senza cercare di capire, senza neppure sospettare che un giorno ci sarebbe stato qualcosa da capire.

È conoscendo meglio la vittima che in genere si scopre l'assassino.

You came to France to find out about our methods, and you will have observed that we don't have any.

What Zograffi would have to realize was that Elie had come to the end, and there was no farther-on for him. Nothing. Emptiness. They could do anything to him they liked. They could prescribe any punishment. But they mustn't force him to leave. That was beyond him. he would rather sit down on the curbstone and let himself die there in the sun. He was tired. For the others, for a man like Zograffi, did that word have the terrible significance it had for him?

Take trains, for instance. He was no longer a child, and it wasn't anything mechanical about them that attracted him. If he had a preference for night trains, it was because he sensed in them something strange, almost wicked

She must have been pretty once. At least, like everyone, she had been young. Now her eyes, her mouth, her whole body exuded weakness. Could it be that she was ill and waiting for her next attack? Some people who know that at a particular hour they are going to start suffering again have that expression, subdued and yet tense, like drug addicts waiting for the hour of their dose.

Novità, signor Féron?». «I tedeschi hanno invaso l'Olanda». «La notizia è ufficiale? ». «Viene dal Belgio». «E Parigi?» «Parigi trasmette musica».

Aveva comunque il fascino di certi tisici: lineamenti delicati, pelle trasparente, labbra sensuali e insieme beffarde.

I felt for too long anyway that there was something creaky about this story. You needn't try to understand, but when all the material clues manage to confuse matters rather than clarify them, it means they've been faked … and everything, without exception, is fake in this case. It all creaked.

There's no skill and no grace to it, but you

Sapeva solo che quella passeggiata sotto il sole, accompagnata dalla vocetta di sua figlia, era dolce e malinconica al tempo stesso. Si sentiva felice e triste. Ma non a causa di Andrêe né di Nicolas. Non ricordava di averci pensato. Felice e triste come la vita, così avrebbe voluto dire.

I'm at sea, lieutenant … We probably both are. Except that you, you fight the waves, you mean to go in a definite direction, whereas I let myself drift with the current, clutching here and there on a passing branch.

The sun finally died in beauty, flinging out its crimson flames, which cast their reflection on the faces of passers-by, giving them a strangely feverish look. The darkness of the trees became deeper. You could hear the Seine flowing. Sounds carried farther, and people in their beds could feel, as they did every night, the vibration of the ground as buses rolled past.

Non erano mai stati due in nessun altro posto, se non quando avevano fatto l'amore per la prima volta, fra l'erba alta e le ortiche al margine del bosco di Sarelle. - La camera azzurra

Si vergognava di averle ascoltate senza ribellarsi, odiava il Tony che in piedi davanti allo specchio si tamponava il sangue sul labbro, fiero di starsene tutto nudo in un raggio di sole, di essere un bel maschio che si lasciava ammirare, fiero di vedere il suo sperma colare dalla vulva di una femmina. - La camera azzurra

Non si passa la vita a letto, in una camera vibrante di sole, abbandonandosi al furore di due corpi nudi. - La camera azzurra