Quotes from Rene Char

What comes into the world to disturb nothing merits neither attention nor patience

For an inheritance to be really great, the hand of the defunct must not be seen.

Each act is virgin, even the repeated ones.

I believe in the magic and authority of words.

Eternity is not much longer than life.

Impose ta chance, serre ton bonheur et va vers ton risque. À te regarder, ils s'habitueront.

Children and geniuses know that there is no bridge, only the water that lets itself be crossed.

A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.

A few beings are neither in society nor in a state of dreaming. They belong to an isolated fate, to an unknown hope. Their open acts seem anterior to time's first inculpation and to the skies' unconcern. It occurs to no one to employ them. The future melts before their gaze. They are the noblest and the most disquieting.

Avec celui que nous aimons, nous avons cessé de parler, et ce n'est pas le silence. --- Gdy z osob? kochan? przestajemy mówi?, nie zapada cisza.

With my teeth I have seized life Upon the knife of my youth. With my lips today, With my lips alone...

Desire, desire which knows, we draw no advantage from our shadows except from some veritable sovereignties accompanied by invisible flames, invisible chains, which, coming to light, step after step, cause us to shine.

Midnight is not in everyman's reach.

Companions in pathos,who barely murmur,go with your lamp spent and return the jewels. A new mystery sings in your bones. Cultivate your legitimate strangeness.

A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proof.

You only fight well for causes you yourself have shaped, with which you identify—and burn.

Il faut être l'homme de la pluie et l'enfant du beau temps.

Le réel quelquefois désaltère l'espérance. C'est pourquoi, contre toute attente, l'espérance survit.

No man, unless he be dead in living, can feel at anchor in this life.

Dans nos ténèbres, il n'y a pas une place pour la Beauté. Toute la place est pour la Beauté.

How did writing come to me? Like bird's down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended.

There is only the one like me, the companion man or woman, who can wake me from my torpor, set off the poetry, hurl me against the limits of the old desert for me to triumph over it. No other. Neither sky nor privileged earth, now things which set you to trembling. Torch, I only waltz with that one.

The poet advises: 'Read me. Read me again.' He does not always come away unscathed from his page, but like the poor, he knows how to make use of an olive's eternity.

Impose your luck, embrace your happiness and go toward your risks: by looking at you, they'll get used to it.