Quotes from Irene Nemirovsky

So they headed out of Paris on foot, past the city gates, dragging their bags behind them in the dust, then on into the suburbs, into the countryside, all the while thinking, 'This can't be happening! I must be dreaming!' Like all the others, the Michauds started walking.

Either people would think only about being able to survive and there would be no place for Art, or they would become obsessed by a new ideal, as after every crisis before. A new ideal? A new fashion, more like, he thought with cynicism and weariness. But he, Corte, was too old to adapt to new tastes. He had already changed his style in 1920. A third time would be impossible. It exhausted him just to think about what was to come, what kind of world was about to be born.

Longtemps, Francine demeura immobile ; sa colère même était tombée ; de grosses larmes gonflaient ses paupières et coulaient, lourdes et rondes, le long de ses joues. Mais elle ne songeait pas à les essuyer. Elle oubliait, pour la première fois de sa vie peut-être, que le chagrin vieillit et abîme la figure.

It wasn't exactly what you'd call fear, rather a strange sadness – a sadness that had nothing human about it any more, for it lacked both courage and hope. This was how animals waited to die. It was the way fish caught in a net watch the shadow of the fisherman moving back and forth above them.

In spite of everything, the thing that links all these people together is our times, solely our times. Is that really enough? I mean: is this link sufficiently felt?

He wore the expression found on people who have died in an accident, in a matter of seconds, without having had time to be afraid or suffer.

El mundo está regido por leyes que no se han hecho ni para nosotros ni contra nosotros.

No one can ever truly know another human being.

Non era il piacere che gli aveva procurato a legarlo così intensamente a lei. Era qualcos'altro, che nasceva in una zona più sottile della carne, più calda dell'anima.

La vita sociale si regge interamente su sfumature.

A newspaper, a kind of radio. Freedom, the Germans secretly paying him a subsidy.

The people around him believed that fate was tracking them down, them and their pitiable generation; but not Maurice: he knew there had been exoduses throughout history. How many people had died on this land (on land everywhere in the world), dripping with blood, fleeing the enemy, leaving cities in flames, clutching their children to their hearts: no one gave a thought to these countless dead, or pitied them.

We are currently living in terrifying times which could become tragic overnight. Moreover, you are Russian and Jewish, and it could be that people who do not know you—though they must be few and far between given your fame as a writer—might cause problems for you, also

She could feel a bell-shaped pink flower brushing her lips. Later, she would remember that while they were stretched out on the ground, a small white butterfly was lazily flitting from one flower to another. Finally she heard a voice whisper, "It's over; they're gone." She stood up and automatically brushed the dust from her skirt. No one, she thought, had been hurt. But after walking for a few minutes, they saw the first fatalities: two men and a woman.

La signora Angellier suonò. La cuoca si affrettò a chiudere le imposte e le finestre, e il buio escluse tutto: i canti, il suono dei baci, il dolce splendore delle stelle, il passo dei vincitori sul selciato , e il verso del rospo assetato che, inappagato, chiedeva acqua al cielo.

?i rezonanÈ›a uman? a acestor vorbe, gestul, tot ce dovedea f?r? putin?? de t?gad? c? nu era un monstru însetat de sânge, ci un soldat ca ceilalÈ›i sparser? deodat? gheaÈ›a între sat È™i german, între ??ran È™i invadator.

le rispose cercando di calmarla. <>.

Presas del pánico, algunas mujeres soltaban a sus hijos como si fueran molestos paquetes y salían huyendo. Otras los estrechaban contra su cuerpo con tanta fuerza que parecían querer meterlos de nuevo en su seno, como si ése fuera el único refugio seguro.

Irène suddenly taken today destination Pithiviers13 (Loiret)—hope you can intercede urgently—trying to telephone no success. Michel Epstein.

Así que también las personas mayores sufrían por cosas fútiles y pasajeras?

Cómo había que apresurarse en vivir, Dios mío, en agradar a los hombres, en amar... El dinero, los vestidos y los coches bonitos, ¿de qué servía todo eso sin un hombre en tu vida, un pretendiente, un joven amante?

The incessant noise of gunfire filled him with anxiety and excitement; he started trembling all over, shaking his head from side to side like a frightened horse. But he wasn't afraid. Not at all! He wasn't afraid! He welcomed, he embraced, the idea of death. It would be a beautiful death for this lost cause. It would be better than crouching in trenches as they did in '14. Now they fought in the open air, beneath the beautiful June sun or in the brilliant moonlight

she cried because prejudice outlives passion and because she was sentimentally patriotic.

He hated the war; it threatened much more than his lifestyle or peace of mind. It continually destroyed the world of the imagination, the only world where he felt happy.