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What is writing, no matter how lavish the pieces, if it says nothing of the truth, cares little for the heart, and is merely subservient to the pleasure of showing one's brilliance.

Muriel Barbery

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Muriel Barbery
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: May 28
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Anfa
Nothing
Merely
Matter
Pieces
Writing
Says
Heart
Pleasure
Lavish
Truth
Subservient
Care
Brilliance
Littles
Cares
Little
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More quotes by Muriel Barbery

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We never look beyond our assumptions and what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others we just meet ourselves.
Muriel Barbery
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We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.
Muriel Barbery
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Pastries . . . can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world.
Muriel Barbery
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I belong to the 8% of the world population who calm their apprehension by drowning it in numbers.
Muriel Barbery
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Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time...When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.
Muriel Barbery
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People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.
Muriel Barbery
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Poverty is a reaper: it harvests everything inside us that might have made us capable of social intercourse with others, and leaves us empty, purged of feeling, so that we may endure all the darkness of the present day.
Muriel Barbery
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We can be friends. We can be anything we want to be.
Muriel Barbery
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Entrusting one's life is not the same as opening up one's soul.
Muriel Barbery
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We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were able to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.
Muriel Barbery
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I may be indigent in name, position, and in appearance, but in my own mind I am an unrivaled goddess -
Muriel Barbery
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To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things.
Muriel Barbery
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I find this a fascinating phenomenon: the ability we have to manipulate ourselves so that the foundation of our beliefs is never shaken.
Muriel Barbery
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Melancholy overwhelms me at supersonic speed.
Muriel Barbery
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When tea becomes ritual, it takes place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.
Muriel Barbery
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A man who farts in bed . . . is a man who loves life.
Muriel Barbery
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People think that children don't know anything. It's enough to make you wonder if grownups were ever children once upon a time.
Muriel Barbery
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But the world, in its present state, is no place for princesses.
Muriel Barbery
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If, in our world, there is any chance of becoming the person you haven't yet become...will I know how to seize that chance, turn my life into a garden that will be completely different from my forebears'?
Muriel Barbery
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They didn't recognize me, I repeat. He stops in turn, my hand still on his arm. It is because they have never seen you, he says. I would recognize you anywhere.
Muriel Barbery