Quotes from Romain Gary

As you know, when an American sees another driving a Cadillac, he says to himself: 'One day I too will drive a Cadillac.' But when a Frenchman feels intimidated by someone else's car, he says: 'Why can't the bum drive a jalopy, like everyone else?

Maybe the Nazis told the truth about us. Maybe the Nazis were the truth. We shouldn't forget the truth. The rest, just beautiful tiful lies about ourselves. Perhaps do — to sing another beautiful lie.

A civilization worthy of that name will always feel guilty toward Man and that is, precisely, what makes it a civilization." Pascal, probably. It's always Pascal with the French, when it's not La Rochefoucauld. Aristocratic bastards.

Il lui servit une dose maison de ce vieil optimisme américain, qu'ils ont en Europe.

But perhaps there are points about which one never grows old. And it is no more agreeable at sixty-three to feel that a young woman no longer considers you a man than it is at sixteen to feel that she still considers you a child.

To Americans the idea of a problem without a solution is insupportable; and any direct encounter with the "human condition", that is, the inevitability of loss and defeat, sends them scurrying off to psychiatrists or on a frantic pursuit of power, money, world records.

Remember - when you came back from the states thirty years ago, and you had caught on to the importance of putting up a good front, and keeping it up at all costs. Yes, and you make a bundle of those wrapping papers of yours! And now you yourself are nothing but wrapping paper. With nothing inside.

She was too ignorant, uneducated, in that kind of physically sophisticated, lovely-assed Texan way. An American primitive.

So they said I was crazy... Some say it's touched in the head, some say it's touched by a sacred spark. It can be hard to tell the difference. But if you really somebody or something, give them everything you have - everything you are, even. And don't worry about the rest.

For centuries those people were hunters, and now hunting has been taken away from them, without anything taking its place. When you separate people from their past without giving them anything in its place, they live with their eyes on that past . . . They're not the ones to blame.

My love, I caught sight of you a few moments ago, deep in conversation with a very sober-looking man, and I thought here is a bureaucrat sent by Reality to demand a full accounting, to investigate us on suspicion of fraud... on suspicion of being happy. Yes, there is something scandalous, something privileged and elitist about our love, because two people happily in love always turn their backs on the world; and so I am afraid. (From Laura's note).

He was to tell André Malraux later: "Clemeneau used to say: 'War is a much too serious business to be left to the military.' And look what happened to Communism when the Communists got hold of it or to the Catholic Church in the hands of the clergy. We are rapidly approaching a point when it will no longer be possible to trust scientists with science.

Când c?l?toresc împreun?, oamenii afl? o gr?mad? de lucruri unii despre alÈ›ii, se descoper?. E drept c? majoritatea r?mân în picioare în lift, f?r? s? se priveasc?, verticali È™i È›epeni, pentru a nu p?rea c? invadeaz? teritoriul celorlalÈ›i. Lifturile sunt niste cluburi englezeÈ™ti, numai c? se st? în picioare, cu opriri la etaje.

It was as though I were appealing a medical verdict to a higher court; and I knew, after all, though the law is occasionally flexible enough to grant a suspended sentence, it is futile to keep appealing against decrees of nature.

A woman you love, yes, of course. But sometimes one loves a woman... with anger, as though she were a means of possessing the world. Or a musical instrument on which to play loud martial music...

Mai ales curierul È™i must??ile lui de b?trân-muncitor-francez m? enervau, cu aerele lui cunosc?toare È™i racolatoare.

That might be, but that's exactly where betrayal of human values begins: when the approach to science is merely scientific.

Elle n'avait jamais vraiment aimé les impressionnistes. Elle trouvait qu'ils manquaient d'outrance, de passion. Seul Renoir, parfois, savait traiter un corps de femme avec ce manque de respect qui lui était dû.

Il y a des gens, jeune homme, qui tombent tellement amoureux de la vie qu'ils préfèrent mourir plutôt que de renoncer à vivre

Avea una dintre acele foarte vechi priviri de italian care-È™i cunoaÈ™te lumea. E o privire gurmand? care te înv?luie ca s? te înghit? mai bine.

I'm an old naturalist. I defend all the roots that God has planted deep in the earth — and also the ones He has planted forever in the human soul — call it a need for justice, for freedom, for dignity . . .

What amazed Cardinal Sandomme not a little was that all the bishops present were behaving as if there were something new and unexpected in the situation, as if some new calamity had suddenly hit mankind's spiritual fiber. Yet this was nothing but the latest step on the road of spiritual degradation mankind had taken long ago . . .

You are far too well informed a man to pretend that you don't know what little game you are playing. If you have presentiments of death, it is because of certain wishes. You desire to escape sexual impotence - impotence, in short - and you wish for death to save you from all that. It is one of the virility's favorite ploys.

Tout ce que je veux dire, c'est que si les hommes cédaient toujours à ce qu'il y a en eux de plus humain, il y a longtemps qu'ils ne seraient plus des hommes.