Marie Vieux-Chauvet Quotes

He is alone like me. Alone with his memories and the heavy past he drags after him like a ball and chain. (p73)

Life continues in its monotonous and petty course. Fortunately, I carry within me a world quite different from the one I live in. (p73)

Freedom is an inmost power. That is why society limits it. In the light of day our thoughts would make monsters and madmen of us. Even those with the most limited imagination conceal something horrifying. Our innumerable flaws are proof of our monstrously primitive origin. Rough drafts that we are. And we will remain so as long as we lack the courage to hack a path through the tangled undergrowth of life and walk with eyes fixed on the truth. The hard conclusion to an ephemeral life on the road to perfection. One can't reach it without sacrifice and suffering. I would like to be sure that Beethoven died satisfied to have written his concertos. Without this certainty, what would be the point of the painful anxiety of a Cézanne searching for a color that escapes him? Or of the anguish of a Dostoyevsky grasping at God in the thoughts swarming within the hellish complexity of the soul! All of them proof of another life, mysterious and intangible, clamoring for its share of immortality. Each of us must find within ourselves the possibility to meet such demands. It is a matter of will and action. Of choosing to be puppets or to be human beings. As for me, I sometimes feel I have gone off course, standing for years in front of a door that would not open for me and that I was afraid to force. Afraid perhaps out of sheer terror of facing the truth. When the time comes to follow my own path, I lose my nerve. Oh, what wouldn't I give to seize the essential thread of my thought once and for all! Something I can't define is rising from my innermost being in short-lived flashes. And here I am, my hands open and more empty than ever. (p72-3)

In every human being there is a blessed soul made miserable by the pursuit of happiness. (p69)

Unexpected confidence fills me. Slowly I feel it emerge. Is this maturity? I run my hand over my face to feel the first transformations in my features. Yes, I have changed. My moist lips are parted on a tentative decision still unclear to me. I realize my worth. Everything that has fermented in my mind over forty years-my unappeased desires, my unheard pleas, the oblivion of solitary pleasure-is rising up within me. A revolution. I feel ready to answer to the demands of my being. (p67-8)

The stars multiply, separate, and scatter. Everything comes to an end and then starts again. (p67)

He opens our eyes on new horizons and unveils a mysterious, unknown world to us. (p65)

What am I running away from that I so drunkenly welcome this glimmer of love in my life? (p56)

Fear is a vice that takes root once it is cultivated. It takes time to recover from it.
Jean Luze shrugged.
"Who can boast that he has never been afraid?" he shot back at Audier. "At least you have been spared from war. As for me, I bear its mark on my body and soul forever."

You may be all bluster strutting about like a walking arsenal, but I'm smart enough to hide my game and look harmless to you. And therein lies my strength. I am patient, whereas you, like all fools, are impulsive. I wrap myself in the dignity of an old family line, as I nurse my serpent's venom. You spread your cruelty, I know how to hide mine. You bite, I sting-stealthily, my eye trained by a bourgeois education, imbibed like mother's milk, which makes me the most cunning of enemies. I wait for my moment. Because for now, love saves me from hatred. (p53)

Even though life has denied me everything, I am not inclined to play the adoptive mother. I may kiss Jane's son on his nice round cheeks but I remain detached, the door to my heart as solidly barricaded as the door to my bedroom. (p57)

What a hymn to life, this work born from suffering! (p31)

In order not to destroy the myth of the unblemished old maid, I admit to venial sins only. I keep the so-called mortal sins to myself. That's between me and God. I will accept punishment bravely, no matter how terrible. I will appear before Him, pointing a finger at Him. I will be the one to accuse. I don't care, everything may be perfect up there, but on earth, what a mess! (p31)

The repressed have this in common: they exaggerate the importance of what they deny themselves. The priests conceal their desire under a skirt, the nuns under a veil, and yet they are both obsessed by it. (p27)

Amazing how love cancels out all other feelings. (p23)