Suite Française Quotes

“Waiting is erotic”
― irene nemirovsky, Suite Française

“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.
At this moment she wasn't ashamed of loving him, because her physical desire had gone and all she felt towards him now was pity and a profound, almost maternal tenderness. 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.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise

“How sad the world is, so beautiful yet so absurd...”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise

“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.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise

“...for music alone can abolish differences
of language or culture between two people and invoke something indestructible within them.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Française

“After all, people judge one another according to their own feelings. It is only the miser who sees other enticed by money, the lustful who see others obsessed by desire.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“All the light of the day, fleeing the earth, seemed for one brief moment to take refuge in the sky; pink clouds spiralled round the full moon that was as green as pistachio sorbet and as clear as glass; it was reflected in the lake.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Française

“They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other- the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders. 'Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you, my darling?”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper. In the darknes the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Everyone looked at their house and thought, "Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I'l have nothing left.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Française

“...because all happiness is contagious, and disarms the spirit of hatred.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“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

“These two sections [of Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise], plus some of the author's notes, are all we have -- this in itself is a tragedy and waste of war. Had this novel been finished we would be hailing it as one of the supreme works of literature. As it stands, it is like a great cathedral gutted by a bomb. The ruined shell still soars to heaven, a reminder of the human spirit triumphing despite human destructiveness.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“The tender June day persisted, refusing to die. Each pulse of light was fainter and more exquisite than the last, as if bidding farewell to the earth, full of love and regret.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Heureux sont ceux qui peuvent aimer et haïr sans feinte, sans détour, sans nuance.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“I keep telling you, you don't pay enough attention to the minor characters. A novel should be like a street full of strangers, where no more than two or three people are known to us in depth.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“He hated the war; it threatened much more than his lifestyle or peace of mind. It continually destroyed the world of the imagination, the only world where he felt happy.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“This thing of Beauty is a Guilt forever.”
― Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Française

“So what? German or French, friend or enemy, he's first and foremost a man and I'm a woman. He's good to me, kind, attentive. . .that's good enough for me. I'm not looking for anything else. Our lives are complicated enough with all these wars and bombings. Between a man and a woman, none of that's important. I couldn't care less if the man I fancy is English or black - I'd still offer myself to him if I got the opportunity.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Evil is visible, it burns, it smugly displays itself for all to see.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Mothers and women in love: both ferocious females.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Un soldato nemico non era mai solo - un essere umano di fronte a un altro - ma portava con sé una folla innumerevole di fantasmi, i fantasmi degli assenti e dei morti. Non ci si rivolgeva a un uomo ma a una moltitudine invisibile; così nessuna delle parole pronunciate era detta semplicemente e come tale ascoltata; si aveva sempre la strana sensazione che a parlare fosse soltanto una bocca, che parlava per tante altre, mute.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Francaise

“Waiting is erotic. ”
― Bruno, Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise

“After the calm comes the storm; it starts out slowly, reaches its peak, then it's over and other periods of calm, some longer, some shorter, come along. It's just been our bad luck to be born in a century full of storms, that's all. They'll die down.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“An enemy soldier never seemed to be alone--one human being like any other--but followed, crushed from all directions by innumerable ghosts, the missing and the dead. Speaking to him wasn't like speaking to a solitary man but to an invisible multitude; nothing that was said was either spoken or heard with simplicity: there was always that strange sensation of being no more than lips that spoke for so many others, others who had been silenced.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Che cosa vuoi capire? Non c'è niente da capire, le rispose cercando di calmarla. Ci sono leggi che regolano il mondo e che non sono fatte né per noi né contro di noi. Quando scoppia il temporale, sai che il fulmine è il prodotto di due scariche elettriche opposte, le nuvole non sanno nulla di te. Non puoi prendertela con loro. Inoltre sarebbe ridicolo, non possono capirti.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Anything was better than music, for music alone can abolish differences of language or culture between two people and evoke something indestructible within them.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Others were compiling a hasty mental inventory of all the pages they’d written, all the speeches they’d given, which might help them win favour with the new government (and since they had all more or less lamented the fact that France had lost her greatness, lost her daring and was no longer producing children, none of them was very worried).”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Erau singuri - se credeau singuri - în casa mare și adormită. Nici o mărturisire, nici o sărutare, tăcere... Apoi, discuții înfierbântate și pasionate, în care vorbeau despre țările lor, despre familiile lor, despre muzică, despre cărți... Fericirea stranie pe care o simțeau... Graba de a descoperi fiecare inima celuilalt, o grabă de iubit care este deja o formă de dăruire, prima, dăruirea sufletului înainte de cea a trupului. <> Dar până atunci nici o vorbă de iubire. La ce bun? Sunt inutile când vocea răgușește, când gurile tremură, când se lasă tăcerile lungi...”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“Every so often something came to life inside her, rebelled, demanded noise, movement, people. Life, my God, life! How long would this war go on? How many years would they have to live like this, in this dismal lethargy, bowed, docile, crushed like cattle in a storm?”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“let me at least retain the right to decide my own destiny, to laugh at it, defy it, escape it if I can. A slave? Better to be a slave than a dog who thinks he’s free as he trots along behind his master.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française