Christian Bobin Quotes

This morning, on the avenue, my death was walking next to me, under the plane-trees. I came back home, lied on the bed. My death looked tired as much as I was. A few minuts later, I woke up, made a coffee and opened a poems book. Some light came out from the book. I think it was at this moment that my death left the appartment, crossing the door, without noise. It was not her time, and perhaps she was depressed by the beauty of a few words, yes, perhaps the death doesn't support books and prefers the head ache maker television.

Truth is not something one can have, only live.

A writer is anyone who follows only the truth of who they are, without ever relying on anything other than the poverty and solitude of that truth. In this respect, children and women in love are born writers.

What are they like, writers, in your mind: it may seem strange, but initially it's not about writing. A writer is someone who struggles with the angels of solitude and truth. A confused struggle, without any clear conclusion.

A painter is someone who wipes the windowpane between the world and us with light, with a rag made of light, soaked in silence.

Today, my love, I am too tired to write for you. You will find in your heart a letter, several pages, full of silence. Read it slowly. The light of this day wrote it for me. In it, it si just about you and the rest coming to me each time I look to you, far away, hundreds kilometers from here.

Nothing is owed to us in life, not even the innocence of a blue sky. Great art is the art of thankfulness for the abundance of every moment. Writing is a Chinese variant of this thankfulness, a courtesy to life in its cloak of nothing, lined with love.

Distance brings sweetness. Absence tames what is near.