Edmond Rostand Quotes

I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things.

My heart to yours sends but one cry:
If kisses fast could flee
By letter, then with your sweet lips
My letters read should be!

My wit is more polished than your mustache. The truth which I speak strikes more sparks from men's hearts than your spurs do from the cobblestones.

I-I am going to be a storm-a flame- I need to fight whole armies alone; I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms; I feel too strong to war with mortals- BRING ME GIANTS!

Stale words, what are they worth?
A moment comes and God help those for whom it never comes.
When love of such nobility possesses this shaking frame
That even the sweetest word, the ultimate honey, stings like vinegar.

his speech may lack the brilliance of his hair." Cyrano to Roxanne

A great nose may be an index
Of a great soul

A man stands straighter under hostile eyes.

A kiss, when all is said, what is it? A rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving; 'tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.

My nose is Gargantuan! You little Pig-snout, you tiny Monkey-Nostrils, you virtually invisible Pekinese-Puss, don't you realize that a nose like mine is both scepter and orb, a monument to me superiority? A great nose is the banner of a great man, a generous heart, a towering spirit, an expansive soul
such as I unmistakably am, and such as you dare not to dream of being, with your bilious weasel's eyes and no nose to keep them apart! With your face as lacking in all distinction
as lacking, I say, in interest, as lacking in pride, in imagination, in honesty, in lyricism
in a word, as lacking in nose as that other offensively bland expanse at the opposite end of your cringing spine
which I now remove from my sight by stringent application of my boot!

Oh, don't take it so hard. I drove into this madness. Every woman needs a little madness in her life.

Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She instills grace in every common thing and divinity in every careless gesture.

The writer's voice, the honesty and candor that is present in that voice, is what must be written upon the page.

I love you, but I should poorly serve the work to which I devote myself anew at the side of one to whom it were less than the greatest thing in the world!

While master of myself, I'll not permit
The soothing beauty of a tear to roll
Along the crooked contours of this nose.
There's a sublimity in tears; and I
Would not debase them;
I would never turn
Something sublime to the ridiculous.

Speak to me ... be eloquent, be brilliant for me. Improvise! Rhapsodize! ... I ask for cream and you give me milk and water ... Please gather your dreams together into words. - Roxanne, Cyrano de Bergerac

And if kisses in these words could travel too, Madam, you'd read this letter with your lips.

Always the answer - yes! Let me die so -
Under some rosy-golden sunset, saying
A good thing, for a good cause! By the sword,
The point of honor - by the hand of one
Worthy to be my foeman, let me fall -
Steel in my heart, and laughter on my lips!

A large nose is in fact the sign of an affable man, good, courteous, witty, liberal, courageous, such as I am.

I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.

A kiss is a rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving.

A kiss, when all is said, what is it? An oath that's given closer than before; A promise more precise; the sealing of Confessions that till then were barely breathed; A rosy dot placed on the i in loving.

The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream?

Well when I write my book, and tell the tale of my adventures
all these little stars that shake out of my cloak
I must save those to use for asterisks!

ROXANE. One hundred men against one: you! - So, good bye! - We are the best of friends, are we not? CYRANO. Assuredly, we are!

How obvious it is now
the gift you gave him. All those letters, they were you ... All those beautiful powerful words, they were you!.. The voice from the shadows, that was you ... You always loved me! Roxanne

I carry my adornments on my soul.
I do not dress up like a popinjay;
But inwardly, I keep my daintiness.
I do not bear with me, by any chance,
An insult not yet washed away- a conscience
Yellow with unpurged bile- an honor frayed
To rags, a set of scruples badly worn.
I go caparisoned in gems unseen,
Trailing white plumes of freedom, garlanded
With my good name- no figure of a man,
But a soul clothed in shining armor, hung
With deeds for decorations, twirling- thus-
A bristling wit, and swinging at my side
Courage, and on the stones of this old town
Making the sharp truth ring, like golden spurs!

Your name hangs in my heart like a bell's tongue.

All my laurels you have riven away, and my roses; yet in spite of you, there is one crown I bear away with me ... One thing without stain, unspotted from the world, in spite of doom mine own! And that is ... my white plume.

If our friend steals our ideas, it proves that he esteems us: He would not take them unless he thought they were good. We are wrong in being annoyed that, for want of children of his own, he adopts ours.

I would die at the stake rather than change a semi-colon!

No, In fairy tales When to the ill-starred Prince the lady says 'I love you!' all his ugliness fades fast But I remain the same, up to the last!

I am never away from you. Even now, I shall not leave you. In another world, I shall be still that one who loves you, loves you beyond measure.

To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero; panache is therefore a timid heroism, like the smile with which one excuses one's superiority.

Take it, and turn to facts my fantasies.

My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.

Roxane: His face is like yours, burning with spirit and imagination. He is proud and noble and young and fearless and beautiful-
Cyrano:(losing all his colour.) Beautiful!
Roxane: Yes. What's wrong?
Cyrano: With me? Nothing. It's only ... only ... (Displaying his bandaged hand, with a little smile.) This fatal wound.

She's a mortal danger without knowing it,
Undreamed of in her own dreams exquisite,
A roseleaf ambush where love lurks to seize
The unwary heart. The unwary eye that sees
Her smile sees pearled perfection. She can knit
Grace from a twine of air. The heavens sit
In every gesture. Of divinities, She's most divine.

Your neck. I want to kiss it.

To be loved for beauty is a poor reward; it is to love a mask, a temporary dress, a sham unworthy of the loving heart. Your beauty which at first but dazzled me, now that I see more clearly, disappears and is not seen at all." Roxanne to Christian

What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be a

I sing, not to hear the echo repeat, a shade fainter, my song! I think of light and not of glory! Singing is my fashion of waging war and bearing witness. And if my song is the proudest of songs, it is that I sing clearly to make the day rise clear!

I was wondering aimlessly; too many road were open ... too many resolves, too complex, allowed of being taken. I took ... by far the simplest of them all.

After all, what is a kiss? A vow made at closer range, a more precise promise, a confession that contains its own proof, a seal placed on a pact that has already been signed; it's a secret told to the mouth rather than to the ear.

Watching other people making friends, everywhere, as a dog makes friends. I mark the manner of these canine courtesies and think, here comes, thank Heaven, another enemy!