Quote

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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Muriel Barbery
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: May 28
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Anfa
Endure
Harvests
Feeling
Empty
Purged
Social
Compassion
Reaper
Feelings
Capable
Stewardship
Others
Darkness
Intercourse
May
Poverty
Harvest
Might
Inside
Ethics
Everything
Leaves
Made
Present

More quotes by Muriel Barbery

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I won't get any better by punishing the people I can't heal.
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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The strong ones among humans do nothing. They talk and talk again.
Muriel Barbery
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Don't worry Renee, I won't commit suicide and I won't burn a thing. Because from now on, for you, I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world.
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 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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The real ordeal is not leaving those you love but learning to live without those who don't love you.
Muriel Barbery
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Civilization is the mastery of violence, the triumph, constantly challenged, over the aggressive nature of the primate. For primates we have been and primates we shall remain, however often we learn to find joy in a camellia on moss. This is the very purpose of education.
Muriel Barbery
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When illness enters a home, not only does it take hold of a body. It also weaves a dark web between hearts, a web where hope is trapped.
Muriel Barbery
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With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of Art, I don't see much else that can nurture human life.
Muriel Barbery
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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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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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Tasting is an act of pleasure and writing about that pleasure is an artistic gesture, but the only true work of art, in the end, is another person's feast.
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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But the world, in its present state, is no place for princesses.
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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...we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.
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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..if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?
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