Francoise Sagan Quotes

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

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

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

The happiness of people who are in love and who are loved shows in their faces. They have an expression that's at once very far away and very much part of the present.

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

What you call types of mind are only mental ages.

It is healthier to see the good points of others than to analyze our own bad ones.

Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

I don't think there's any intrinsic difference between a lover and a husband. ... If I were cynical, I would say that a woman should have both a good husband and a lover. But I'm not cynical so I'll just say that a woman should have a lover who's a good husband and a husband who's a good lover, perhaps both.

Looking for pleasure is the best way to ensure you won't find it.

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

Unhappiness has nothing to teach, and resignation is ugly.

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

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.

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 happiness of others is never bearable for very long.

Houses are for private living, for friends, and for dogs.

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

My love of pleasure seems to be the only consistent side of my character. Is it because I have not read enough?

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

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.

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.

Art must take reality by surprise.

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

I like men to behave like men. I like them strong and childish.

It would be bad form for me to describe people I don't know and don't understand.

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

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

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

He lifted me up and held me close against him, my head on his shoulder. At that moment I loved him. In the morning light he was as golden, as soft, as gentle as myself, and he would protect me.

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.

Curiosity is the beginning of all wisdom.

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

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

He refused categorically all ideas of fidelity or serious commitments. He explained that they were arbitrary and sterile. From anyone else such views would have shocked me, but I knew that in his case they did not exclude tenderness and devotion - feelings which came all the more easily to him since he was determined that they should be transient.

Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus.

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

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.

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

happiness has always seemed to me a great achievement.

curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

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

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.

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

Nothing brings on jealousy like laughter.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.