Image: Elsa Dorfman, CC BY 2.5
44 quotes
French-born American author (1903–1977)
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
on Courage
"I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me."
on Life
"We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself."
on Self Awareness
"Stories are the only enchantment possible, for when we begin to see our suffering as a story, we are saved."
"And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
"We are dancing on our irony as upon the top of glowing sparks."
on Creativity
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive."
on Relationships
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."
on Writing
"The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say."
"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it."
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
"Each friend represents a world in us a world possibly not born until they arrive and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
on Friendship
"I don't tell the truth any more to those who can't make use of it. I tell it mostly to myself because it always changes me."
on Truth
"Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together."
"We did not touch each other. We were both leaning over the abyss."
on Love
"The potion drunk by lovers is prepared by no one but themselves. The potion is the sum of one's whole existence."
"We see the world not as it is, but as we are."
on Perception
"For our anxiety is the one thing we cannot place on the shoulders of others, it suffocates them."
on Fear
"Wherever there is light, look for the shadow. The shadow is me."
on Identity
"People living deeply have no fear of death."
on Death
