Bean > Bean's Quotes

“... they have never seen you ... I would recognize you anywhere. ”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“I have lived half of my life in Paris, not the half the made me but the half in which I made what I made.”
― Gertrude Stein

“Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“What is an aristocrat? A woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“There was only one thing I wanted: to be left alone, without too many demand upon my person, so that for a few moments each day I might be allowed to assuage my hunger.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Papa is just a kid who's playing the dead serious grown-up.”
― Muriel Barbery

“I won't get any better by punishing the people I can't heal.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“I belong to the 8% of the world population who calm their apprehension by drowning it in numbers.”
― Muriel Barbery

“The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.”
― George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul