Francoise Sagan Quotes

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the "fronts" people assume before one another's eyes, and the "front" a writer puts on the face of reality.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

There is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful.

I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

Art must take reality by surprise.

For what are we looking for if not to please? I do not know if the desire to attract others comes from a superabundance of vitality, possessiveness, or the hidden, unspoken need to be reassured.

I always believe things are going to work out.

People respect unhappiness and find it especially hard to forgive success.

Love is worth whatever it costs.

Curiosity is the beginning of all wisdom.

If you treat life well, life is usually good to you. And I love life. There's a long-standing affair between us.

I think the best way to waste time is to try to save time.

Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen and not a shadow of an idea of what you are going to say.

There is no such thing as an ideal man. The ideal man is the man you love at the moment.

I recognize limitations in the sense that I've read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare . . . Aside from that I don't think of limiting myself.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

You should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in New Orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine.

Unhappiness has nothing to teach, and resignation is ugly.

I did not find him absurd. I saw he was kind, that he was on the verge of real love. I thought it would be nice for me to be in love with him, too.

happiness has always seemed to me a great achievement.

Marriage? It's like asparagus eaten with vinaigrette or hollandaise, a matter of taste but of no importance.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

When you make a decision to write according to a set schedule and really stick to it, you find yourself writing very fast. At least I do.

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

The questions I would have liked to ask people were: ‘Are you in love? What are you reading?

The happiness of others is never bearable for very long.

We are torn between the craving to know and the despair of having known.

A love affair based on jealousy is doomed from the start ... It is certanly a sign of love, but it's a sign that it's already dying.

After Proust, there are certain things that simply cannot be done again. He marks off for you the boundaries of your talent.

It amused me to think that one can tell the truth when one is drunk and nobody will believe it.

When man, Apollo man, rockets into space, it isn't in order to find his brother, I'm quite sure of that. It's to confirm that he hasn't any brothers.

Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.

In love, as in finance, only the rich can get credit.

What you call types of mind are only mental ages.

I feel sorry for men. They have more problems than women, because they now have to compete with women.

At night, time becomes a calm sea. It goes on for ever.

I found myself both touched and irritated by the discovery that she was vulnerable.

Illness is the opposite of freedom. It makes everything impossible.

Only by pursuing the extremes in one's nature, with all its contradictions, appetites, aversions, rages, can one hope to understand a little - oh, I admit only a very little - of what life is about.

I had a strong desire to write and some free time.

It isn't common sense that is paramount in this world, it's wishful thinking.

Life has confirmed for me the thoughts and impressions I had when I was 18, as if it was all intuition.

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place.

pity is an agreeable sentiment, uplifting like military music.

The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.

No one ever has time to examine himself honestly, and most people look no further than their neighbors' eyes, in which they may see their own reflection.

No one is more conventional than a woman who is falling out of love.