“ There are only two moments when everything is possible in this life," said Petrus, "when one drinks, and when one makes up stories. Muriel Barbery
“ 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… Muriel Barbery
“ It would never have crossed her mind spontaneously that somebody might actually need silence. That silence helps you to go inward, that anyone who is interested in something more than just life outsid… Muriel Barbery
“ And on the way home I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language. Muriel Barbery
“ Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are reborn or forgotten, and while there ar… Muriel Barbery
“ Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain Beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you've spoken or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognise a well-tuned phrase or… Muriel Barbery
“ Maybe the greatest anger and frustration come not from unemployment or poverty or the lack of a future but from the feeling that you have no culture, because you've been torn between cultures, between… Muriel Barbery
“ I understood that I was suffering because I couldn't make anyone else around me feel better. Muriel Barbery
“ I don't know if you have any idea what a high school in Paris is like in this day and age in the posh neighborhoods—but quite honestly, the slummy banlieues of Marseille have nothing on ours. In fact… Muriel Barbery
“ For a few seconds Maria did not move, or even breathe, apparently. Then she gave a sorrowful gulp and, like all little girls, even those who speak to fantastical wild boars and mercurial horses, she c… Muriel Barbery
“ It's all well and good to have profound thoughts on a regular basis, but I think it's not enough. Well, I mean: I'm going to commit suicide and set the house on fire in a few months; obviously I can't… Muriel Barbery
“ For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word 'never'. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you're saying until you're face… Muriel Barbery
“ With her it's as if a text was written so that we can identify the characters, the narrator, the setting, the plot, the time of the story, and so on. I don't think it has ever occurred to her that a t… Muriel Barbery
“ What makes the strength of the soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself, by… Muriel Barbery
“ Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teac… Muriel Barbery
“ The time of man is coming, and of this I am certain: neither death, nor life, nor the spirits, nor the present, nor the future, nor the stars, nor the abyss, nor any creature: nothing will keep from l… Muriel Barbery
“ Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in turn - and in all this sound and f… Muriel Barbery
