François Mauriac

The arrogance of poets is only a defense; doubt gnaws the greatest among them; they need our testimony to escape despair.

Human love is often but the encounter of two weaknesses.

A good critic is the sorcerer who makes some hidden spring gush forth unexpectedly under our feet.

Let us be wary of ready-made ideas about cowardice and courage: the same burden weighs infinitely more heavily on some shoulders than on others.

A cemetery saddens us because it is the only place of the world in which we do not meet our dead again.

What I fear is not being forgotten after my death, but, rather, not being enough forgotten. As we were saying, it is not our books that survive, but our poor lives that linger in the histories.

The grandeur of man lies in song, not in thought.

No love, no friendship Can cross the path of our destiny Without leaving some mark on it forever.

Each of us is like a desert, and a literary work is like a cry from the desert, or like a pigeon let loose with a message in its claws, or like a bottle thrown into the sea. The point is: to be heard—even if by one single person.

Every novelist ought to invent his own technique.

An author who assures you that he writes for himself alone and that he does not care whether he is heard or not is a boaster and is deceiving either himself or you.