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Irène Némirovsky QUOTES

Irène Némirovsky QUOTES

1 " Waiting is erotic "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

2 " Deep within everyone's heart there always remains a sense of longing for that hour, that summer, that one brief moment of blossoming. For several weeks or months, rarely longer, a beautiful young woman lives outside ordinary life. She is intoxicated. She feels as if she exists beyond time, beyond its laws; she experiences not the monotonous succession of days passing by, but moments of intense, almost desperate happiness. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Jezebel

3 " Heureux sont ceux qui peuvent aimer et haïr sans feinte, sans détour, sans nuance. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

4 " ...because all happiness is contagious, and disarms the spirit of hatred. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

5 " But what is certain is that in five, ten or twenty years, this problem unique to our time, according to him, will no longer exist, it will be replaced by others...Yet this music, the sound of this rain on the windows, the great mournful creaking of the cedar tree in the garden outside, this moment, so tender, so strange in the middle of war, this will never change, not this, this is forever. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

6 " The breath of wind that moved them was still chilly on this day in May; the flowers gently resisted, curling up with a kind of trembling grace and turning their pale stamens towards the ground. The sun shone through them, revealing a pattern of interlacing, delicate blue veins, visible through the opaque petals; this added something alive to the flower's fragility, to it's ethereal quality, something almost human ,in the way that human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time. The wind could ruffle these ravishing creations but it couldn't destroy them, or even crush them; they swayed there, dreamily; they seemed ready to fall but held fast to their slim strong branches-... "

― Irène Némirovsky

7 " ...she cried because prejudice outlives passion and because she was sentimentally patriotic. "

― Irène Némirovsky

8 " What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

9 " Believe me, my boy, women don't love a man for himself but as a weapon against other women. "

― Irène Némirovsky , The Wine of Solitude

10 " For there comes a time in life when the pity previously reserved only for children takes on a different form, a time when we study the faces of 'old people' and sense that one day we will be just like them. And that is the moment when early childhood comes to an end. "

― Irène Némirovsky , The Wine of Solitude

11 " The way a man drinks in company tells you nothing about him, but the way he drinks when alone reveals, without his realizing it, the very depths of his soul. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Fire in the Blood

12 " How tolerable misfortunes appear when they affect only other people! How strong the human body seems when it's another man's flesh that bleeds! How easy it is to look death in the face when it's another man's turn! "

― Irène Némirovsky , Dimanche and Other Stories

13 " When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half. "

― Irène Némirovsky

14 " She was too exhausted and downcast to take in the importance of the news- just as a person who has shed so many tears at the bedside of someone who is dying has none left for the actual moment of death. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

15 " Everyone was saying that Europe, civilisation, the entire world was collapsing, that the century was destined to end in catastrophe, that everything would perish, drowned in blood. But she still hoped for a husband, a home, children, and she instinctively felt that the destruction of everything was a mirage, a lie, while she, she lived the truth. "

― Irène Némirovsky , The Fires of Autumn

16 " Waiting is erotic. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

17 " Nu limba, legile, obiceiurile sau principiile despart sau unesc ființele, ci felul identic în care țin cuțitul și furculița. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

18 " Après tout, on ne juge le monde que d'après son propre coeur. L'avare seul voit les gens menés par l'intérêt, le luxurieux par l'obsession du désir. Pour Madame Angellier, un Allemand n'était pas un homme, c'était une personnification de la cruauté, de la perversité et de la haine. Que d'autres eussent un jugement différent était impossible, invraisemblable... Elle ne pouvait pas plus se répresenter Lucile amoureuse d'un Allemand qu'elle n'eût imaginé l'accouplement d'une femme et d'une bête fabuleuse, comme la licorne, le dragon ou la tarasque. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

19 " Elle variait ses hallucinations à son gré. Elle ne se contentait pas du passé; elle escomptait l'avenir! Elle changeait le présent selon sa volonté; elle mentait et se trompait elle-même, mais comme ses mensonges étaient ses propres oeuvres, elle les chérissait. Pour de brefs instants, elle était heureuse. Il n'y avait plus à son bonheur ces limites imposées par le réel. Tout était possible, tout était à sa portée. D'abord, la guerre était finie. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française

20 " Adieu," he said, "this is goodbye. I'll never forget you, never."
She stood silent. He looked at her and saw her eyes full of tears. He turned away.
She forced herself to smile. "Like the Chinese mother who sent her son off to war telling him to be careful 'because war has its dangers,' I'm asking you, if you have any feelings for me, to be as careful as possible with your life."
Because it is precious to you?" he asked nervously.
Yes. Because it is precious to me. "

― Irène Némirovsky , Suite Française