Quotes About Expression

Si j'avais vos dispositions, je crois bien que j'écrirais du matin au soir

The kind of plagiarism which it is most difficult for any human individual to avoid (and even for whole nations, who persist in reproducing their faults and aggravate them in so doing) is self-plagiarism.

Love? I make it often, but I never talk about it.

There is nothing like desire for preventing the thing one says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in one's mind.

Albeit expression suffices to make us believe in enormous differences between things that are separated by infinitely little — albeit that infinitely little may by itself create an expression that is absolutely unique, an individuality — it was not only the infinitely little of its lines and the originality of its expression that made each of these faces appear irreducible to terms of any other.

You have a soul in you of rare quality, an artist's nature; never let it starve for lack of what it needs.

And thinking again of the sameness of Vinteuil's works, I explained to Albertine that the great men of letters have never created more than a single work, or rather have never done more than refract through various media an identical beauty which they bring into the world.

That is rather Pelléas, too," I suggested to Mme de Cambremer-Legrandin. "You know the scene I mean." "Of course I do" was what she said; but "I haven't the faintest idea" was the message proclaimed by her voice and features, which did not mould themselves to the shape of any recollection, and by her smile, which floated in the air, without support.

She refrained from uttering it? So at least I long believed, for at that time I still supposed that it was by means of words that one communicated the truth to others.

Nature, like the catastrophe at Pompeii or the metamorphosis of a nymph, freezes us into an accustomed cast of countenance. In the same way, the intonations of our voice express our philosophy of life, what one says to oneself at each moment about things.

A necessidade de falar impede não só de escutar mas também de ver, e nesse caso a ausência de qualquer descrição do meio exterior é já uma descrição de um estado interno.

The particulars of life do not matter to the artist; they merely provide him with the opportunity to lay bare his genius.

Les grands littérateurs n'ont jamais fait qu'une seule oeuvre.

He had always found a peculiar fascination in tracing in the paintings of the Old Masters, not merely the general characteristics of the people whom he encountered in his daily life, but rather what seems least susceptible of generalisation, the individual features of men and women whom he knew,

with the slight emotion which a man feels when, even without being fully aware of what he is doing, he says something, not because it is true but because he enjoys saying it, and listens to his own voice uttering the words as though they came from some one else,

What is utterly detestable is the Victor Hugo of the last stage, the Légende des Siècles, I forget all their names. But in the Feuilles d'Automne, the Chants du Crépuscule, there's a great deal that's the work of a poet, a true poet! Even in the Contemplations,

All the products of one period resemble one another; the artists who illustrate the poetry of their generation are the same artists who are employed by the big financial houses.

My ——" or "My dearest ——" followed by my Christian name, which, if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book, would be 'My Marcel,' or 'My dearest Marcel.' After this I would never allow my relatives, by calling me 'dearest,' to rob of their priceless uniqueness the delicious words that Albertine uttered to me

The Word is alive. We have always known it. But it needs to be uttered, aloud or in the mind of a reader. Without a consciousness to tickle them into life, those books were dead.

Literature itself is a species of code. You line up symbols and create a simulacrum of life.

I have woken up to find that I am made of words.

Because before you acquired language, you didn't exist.

Houses are very important. Describe your house and I'll tell you who you are. Your world is there. It's what covers you, like a bird's feathers.

Husbands, in general, tend to complain a lot