Blue of Noon Quotes

“She was crying, with wild entreaty, the way one vomits.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“She was so unsettled by love and the sense of her nakedness that her voice shrank in her throat. The peri­ods of the song warbled through the room. Her whole body seemed ablaze . The drunken , singing head shook with some delirious impulse that seemed to be destroy­ ing her. What insanity! She was weeping, in her wild nakedness, as she approached my bed, which to me was a death bed. She fell on her knees, she fell down in front of me and hid her tears in the sheets.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Twenty years later, the boy who used to stick himself with pens was standing under the sky in a for­eign street where he had never been, waiting for some unknown, impossible event. There were stars: an infinity of stars. It was absurd - absurd enough to make you scream; but it was a hostile absurdity.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Her lips pale, her face red from the cold, Dorothea said nothing. She ate a kind of cake she was fond of. She was still beautiful; nevertheless her face kept dissolving in that light, dissolving in the grey of the sky.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“One can always save one's own soul. - Lazare whispered. She uttered the sentence without moving, without even looking up. She gave me the feeling of unshakable conviction.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Quand'ero ragazzo, amavo il sole: chiudevo gli occhi e, attraverso le palpebre, era rosso. Il sole era terribile, faceva pensare a un'esplosione: c'era nulla di più solare del sangue rosso che scorreva sul lastrico, come se la luce esplodesse e uccidesse? In quella notte opaca, ero diventato ubriaco di luce; così, di nuovo, Lazare era ai miei occhi soltanto un uccello del malaugurio, un uccello sudicio e trascurabile. I miei occhi non si perdevano più nelle stelle, che brillavano sopra di me realmente, ma nell'azzurro del cielo di mezzogiorno. Li chiudevo per perdermi in quell'azzurro vivo, lucente: grossi insetti neri ne uscivano ronzando vorticosamente. Alla stessa maniera domani sarebbe apparso, nell'ora splendente del giorno, dapprima come un punto impercettibile, l'aeroplano che avrebbe portato Dorothea... Aprii gli occhi, rividi le stelle sopra la mia testa, ma ero pazzo di sole e avevo voglia di ridere: domani quell'aeroplano, tanto piccolo e lontano da non offuscare minimamente lo splendore del cielo, mi sarebbe apparso simile a un insetto rumoroso e, con la sua cabina carica dei sogni smisurati di Dirty, sarebbe stato nell'aria, per la mia testa di omuncolo piantato sulla terra – nello stesso momento in cui il dolore in lei doveva scavare più profondo dell'abitudine – una specie di assurda, adorabile mosca da letamaio. Avevo riso, e non era più soltanto il ragazzo triste dei colpi di penna, che camminava, in quella notte, lungo i muri: avevo riso nella stessa maniera quando ero piccolo ed ero certo che un giorno, io, spinto da una felice insolenza, avrei dovuto rovesciare tutto, necessariamente rovesciare tutto.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Yo mismo estoy perplejo, te-rri-ble-men-te perplejo… Tanto más cuanto… acaba usted de esbozar en pocas palabras un aspecto imprevisto del problema… ¡Oh, oh! —sonrió en su luenga barba—, he aquí algo te-rri-ble-men-te interesante. Pues, en efecto, querida niña: ¿por qué somos aún socialistas… o comunistas?… Sí, ¿por qué?…”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“In any case, even if there’d been a war, it would have mirrored what was going on in my head.’

‘But how could war mirror anything inside your head? A war would have made you happy?’

‘Why not?’

‘So you think war could lead to revolution?’

‘I’m talking about war, not about what it could lead to.’

Nothing could have shocked her more cruelly than what I had just said.”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Listen to me, Xenie." I began ranting, for no reason, I was frantic. "You've been involved in literary goings-on. You must have read De Sade. You must have found De Sade fantastic. Just like the others. People who admire De Sade are con artists, do you hear? Con artists!”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon

“Was there anything more sunlike than red blood running over cobblestones, as though light could shatter and kill?”
― Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon