Quotes from Jean-Claude Izzo

Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful.

Why was it so difficult to make new friends once you were past forty Was it because we didn't have dreams anymore, only regrets?

You ought to get out more. You know, Pérol, we should go out some evening, just you and me. Otherwise, you lose touch with reality. You know what I mean? You lose your sense of reality, and hey presto, you don't know which shelf you left your soul on. The shelf where you put your friends. The shelf where you put your women. Stage right, stage left. Or in the shoebox. You turn around and you find you're stuck in the bottom drawer, with the accessories.

Happiness. One day. Ten thousand years ago.

I was the last, the sole survivor. The most honorable thing a survivor could do was survive. If you stayed on your feet, stayed alive, you were the winner.

Nobody was speaking. Only the cicadas continued their whine, indifferent to human tragedies.

It's at moment of misfortune that we remember we're all exiles.

Ordinary French people. Citizens of fear.

Leila was untouchable. She was in my heart now, and I'd carry her always, on this earth that every day gives men a chance.

Killing was easy. Dying was something else.

The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture of dust and grease. Verdigris. Books today don't have a smell. They don't even smell of print.

Marseille ist keine Stadt für Touristen. Es gibt dort nichts zu sehen. Seine Schönheit lässt sich nicht fotografieren. Sie teilt sich mit. Hier muss man Partei ergreifen. Sich engagieren. Dafür oder dagegen sein. Leidenschaftlich sein. Erst dann wird sichtbar, was es zu sehen gibt. Und dann ist man, wenn auch zu spät, mitten in einem Drama. Einem antiken Drama, in dem der Held der Tod ist. In Marseille muss man sogar kämpfen, um zu verlieren.

But poetry has never had an answer for anything. All it does is bear witness. To despair. And desperate lives.

We fought over a girl's smile, not because of the color of our skins. It created friendships, not hatreds.

We were all moving to a pre-ordained end. You just had to open the papers and read the international news, or the crime reports. We didn't need nuclear weapons. We were killing each other with prehistoric savagery. We were just dinosaurs, and the worst thing of all was that we knew it.

Of course, every new caress would only have taken us closer to the inevitable: break-ups, tears, disillusionment, sadness, anguish, loathing. It wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the mess that human beings make of this world.

Only the cicadas continued their whine, indifferent to human tragedies.

We're slaves, not idiots. That's all you have to understand.