Anna Gavalda Quotes

She's pretty, but in her face you can see all the things she's given up on in life.

What keeps people from living together is their stupidity, not their differences.

At the end of the afternoon she tore herself away from the story to go and buy some tobacco. This would be tricky on a holiday, but never mind, it was mainly a pretext so the story could settle and she'd have the pleasure of meeting up with her new friend again a bit later on.

But, you see, if being an intellectual means you like to learn, that you're curious and attentive and can admire things and be moved by them and try to understand how it all hangs together, and try to go to bed a bit less stupid than the day before, well, then yes: not only am I an intellectual but I'm proud to be one. Really proud, even.

You'd try to look elsewhere but you wouldn't be able to help yourself, and you'd look back again. Because there was something going on. There was some sort of special air around this person. Or a special light?
Yes. That was it.
If you just came in this crummy Lavomatic on the avenue de La Bourdonnais on December twenty-ninth at five o'clock in the afternoon and you saw this figure in the dreary neon lights, this is exactly what you would say to yourself: Holy shit. An angel.

Camille raised her eyes just then, saw him, did not react right away as if she had not recognized him, then finally smiled. A very faint smile, a slight brilliance, a little sign of recognition among regulars.
"Got your wings in there?" he asked, pointing to her bag.
"Sorry?"
"Nah, nothing.

So ... It's just that I have a problem with voltage. I don't know how to explain it ... I often get the feeling I've got a button missing, you know, some knob for adjusting the volume. I always go too far to one extreme or the other. I can never find the right balance and whatever I take a fancy to - well, it always ends badly." She was surprised at herself. Why was she confiding in him like this? Slightly tipsy, maybe? "When I drink, I drink too much, when I smoke, I fuck myself up, when I love, I go out of my mind and when I work, it's into the ground. Dead. I don't know how to do things normally, quietly, I -

She was sound asleep when he came to curl up next to her. She grunted.
"Don't worry. I'm too drunk, I won't do anything," he murmered.
As she had her back to him, he placed his nose on her neck and slid his arm underneath her to be as close to her as possible. Short strands of her hair tickled his nostrils.
"Camille?"
Was she asleep? Was she pretending? No answer either way.
"I like being with you."
A little smile.
Was she dreaming? Was she asleep? Who knows ...

Perhaps it's because it's incredible to meet someone and say: with this person, I'm happy.

You think they're like your pencils? That they get worn down if you use them?"
"What?"
"Feelings.

For how much longer will we have the strength to tear ourselves away from everyday life and resist? How often will life give us the chance to play hooky? To thumb our noises at it? Or make our little honorarium on the side? When will we lose one another and in what way will the ties be stretched beyond repair?
How much longer until we become too old?
And I know we were all aware of this. I know what we're like.
We're too shy to talk about it, but at that precise moment on our journey, we knew.

He went down a step and sat with his back against his sweetheart's legs.

She put her notebook on his head.

But you're not as stupid as they say!... Or are you?

Life is stronger than you are, even when you deny it, even when you neglect it, even when you refuse to admit it.

I never knew a sorrow that an hour of reading could not assuage, a great man had once said. Let's put it to the test.

Our certainties never really hold water. One day you feel like dying and the next you realize all you had to do was go down a few stairs to find the light switch so you could see things a bit more clearly.

I think we go well together. I like being with you because I'm never bored. Even when we're not talking, even when we're not touching, even when we're not in the same room, I'm not bored. I'm never bored. I think it's because I have confidence in you, in your thoughts. Do you understand? I love everything I see in you, and everything I don't see. I know your faults, but as it turns out, I feel as though your faults go well with my qualities. We're not afraid of the same things. Even our inner demons go well together! You, you're worth more than you show ...

A pen, you see, you hold it between your thumb and your index finger. No, wait, you hold it however you want. After that, it's not hard, you don't even think about it. Your hands don't exist anymore. The important thing happens elsewhere. No, this won't do, it's still too pretty. You're not being asked to come up with something pretty, you know. No one gives a damn about pretty. There are children's drawings and glossy magazines for that. So put on your mittens, little genius, little empty shell, yes, go on, put them on, I tell you, and maybe at last you'll see, you'll draw an almost perfect failed circle.

How could you let yourself be sidetracked while I was waiting for your breath on my back?