I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.
Francoise SaganI did not find him absurd. I saw he was kind, that he was on the verge of real love. I thought it would be nice for me to be in love with him, too.
Francoise SaganI was thinking that I should be content to kiss him until the break of day. Bertrand ran out of kisses too soon; desire made them superfluous in his eyes. They were only a stage on the road to pleasure, not something inexhaustible and self-sufficient, as Luc had revealed them to me.
Francoise SaganUsually I avoided college students, whom I considered brutal, wrapped up in themselves, particularly in their youth, in which they found material for drama or an excuse for their own boredom. I did not care for young people.
Francoise SaganThere are moments when you feel trapped, ill at ease. A year later the same feeling can turn out to be the theme of a book.
Francoise SaganI've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.
Francoise SaganA Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me but now I am almost ashamed of it's complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.
Francoise SaganThe one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.
Francoise SaganPassion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.
Francoise SaganFor this was the round of love: fear which leads on desire, tenderness and fury, and that brutal anguish which triumphantly follows pleasure.
Francoise SaganWriting is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.
Francoise SaganEvery time I see a film about Joan of Arc I'm convinced she'll get away with it. It's the only way to get through life.
Francoise SaganIt seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the "fronts" people assume before one another's eyes, and the "front" a writer puts on the face of reality.
Francoise SaganNo one, but no one, ever behaves 'well' in bed unless they love or are loved - two conditions seldom fulfilled.
Francoise SaganI've often found myself preferring second-rate people to supposedly superior people, simply and solely because of their uncontrollable tendency to bang themselves against the sides of life's vast lampshade like fireflies or moths.
Francoise SaganThere is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful.
Francoise SaganMarriage? It's like asparagus eaten with vinaigrette or hollandaise, a matter of taste but of no importance.
Francoise SaganLove lasts about seven years. That's how long it takes for the cells of the body to totally replace themselves.
Francoise SaganAll my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me.
Francoise SaganI have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.
Francoise SaganIf you don't have imagination you're lost. But it's a virtue that's becoming increasingly rare, especially in its higher form: spontaneity. Mad, happy spontaneity.
Francoise SaganA love affair based on jealousy is doomed from the start ... It is certanly a sign of love, but it's a sign that it's already dying.
Francoise Sagan