Quotes from Jean Echenoz

About the other one, which for the moment bears the code name Dedale 39, we know only what Ravel is willing to say about it one day to Manuael De Falla: it was supposed to be an airplane in the key of C.

It happend that Bob referred in front of Paul to the young woman met in Chantilly; it happened that Paul spoke to Bob of the one from the cinema that he'd had so much trouble seeing again. It never occurred to them that these portraits might bear a certain resemblance to each other, and the fact is that they bore none at all.

Ví dob?e, že provedení ur?ité skladby, zejména pomalé, vyžaduje výdej fyzické síly, ?emuž se radši vyhne. O? lepší je ležérní p?ístup - ten nedávno k dokonalosti, když zkomponoval doprovod k Ronsardovi na duši jen pro levou ruku, nebo? p?edpokládal, že sám bude prava?kou kou?it.

The telephone could ring twice, Vito knew he was not going to pick it up. He would put on his leg before his trousers as he did every day on first getting up - at all events nothing good would ever again come by phone, and any way, no matter what, his leg came first.

he went to the kitchen to get a banana; after each mouthful he pulled back a fraction the four or five strips of striped skin, faded petals, which covered his fist as it clenched the base of the fruit; carefully he detached the friable, cardboard-flavoured filaments that run down its surface like meridian lines, in a word peeling his banana the way the anthropoid will forever peel his. He threw one of the filaments into the fly cage..

La guerre étant finie, on s'arme de nouveau

Sa curiosité le pousse quand même à visiter le zoo de Berne où Émile se réjouit de voir enfin des singes, espèce qui n'a pas encore droit de séjour en Tchécoslovaquie. Mais les singes ont l'air méchants, aigris, amers, perpétuellement vexés d'avoir raté l'humanité d'un quart de poil. Ça les obsède à l'évidence, ils ne pensent qu'à ça. Ils seraient prêts à le faire payer.

On gratte, on gratte, et puis très vite on respire mal, on sue, il commence à faire terriblement chaud

È così, ad esempio, che è appena nata la sedia elettrica: da una controcampagna pubblicitaria.

Il traiterait presque avec mépris ses frères et ses copains qui emploient leurs loisirs à taper niaisement dans un ballon.

Todo esto se ha descrito mil veces, quizá no merece la pena detenerse de nuevo en esta sórdida y apestosa ópera. Además, quizá tampoco sea útil ni pertinente comparar la guerra con una ópera, y menos cuando no se es muy aficionado a la ópera, aunque la guerra, como ella, sea grandiosa, enfática, excesiva, llena de ingratas morosidades, como ella arme mucho ruido y con frecuencia, a la larga, resulte bastante fastidiosa.