Jules Renard Quotes

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.

I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one's self.

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.

If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed, but that my eyes be opened wider.

The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

We are so happy to advise others that occasionally we even do it in their interest.

An egotist always resents meeting another egotist as if he alone had the right to be one.

God does not believe in our God.

Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice.

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.

Words are the small change of thought.

Dreaming is to think by moonlight by the light of an inner moon.

Don't tell a woman she's pretty; tell her there's no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you.

I finally know what distinguishes man from the other beasts: financial worries.

Some people are so boring that they make you waste an entire day in five minutes.

There is a justice, but we do not always see it. Discreet, smiling, it is there, at one side, a little behind injustice, which makes a big noise.

Clarity is the politeness of the man of letters.

To think is not enough, you must think of something.

Style is to forget all styles.

There are moments when everything goes well, but don't be frightened.

I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.

A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.

To have a horror of the bourgeois is bourgeois.

Fame is a constant effort

Being bored is an insult to oneself.

We are in the world to laugh. In purgatory or in hell we shall no longer be able to do so. And in heaven it would not be proper.

The bourgeois are other people.

A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.

It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.

If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right.

Our dream dashes itself against the great mystery like a wasp against a window pane. Less merciful than man, God never opens the window.

Let us stay at home: there we are decent. Let us not go out: our defects wait for us at the door, like flies.

The less I understand life, the more I live it!

It is easy for a somebody to be modest, but it is difficult to be modest when one is a nobody.

The profession of letters is, after all, the only one in which one can make no money without being ridiculous.

Somewhere in the shadow cast by every famous man is a feminine victim.

To succeed you must add water to your wine, until there is no more wine.

The danger of success is that it makes us forget the world's dreadful injustice.

Acting of some actors seems natural, because they have no talent.

As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to love it more and more.

Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

You can recover from the writing malady only by falling mortally ill and dying.

Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.

if I were to begin my life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more.

Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.

Whenever I have talked to anyone at too great length, I am like a man who has drunk too much, and ashamed, doesn't know where to put himself.

Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were.