Pascal Garnier > Quotes

“Nature's a funny old thing, it does whatever it pleases. He had always been a little afraid of it. He tiptoed into forests, speaking in a whisper, as though entering a church. Nature was mysterious, incomprehensible, impenetrable, off limits, like the ladies' toilets.”
― Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye

“People are always ashamed of the misery that has befallen them, as though it were an act of divine retribution for a long-forgotten sin of theirs”
― Pascal Garnier

“He had instinctively fled to Gare Saint-Lazare because he had nowhere to go, and people with nowhere to go always end up at stations.”
― Pascal Garnier, The Islanders: Shocking, hilarious and poignant noir

“Children are Nazis; they recognize only one race: their own.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes

“Nadine found herself standing in front of a row of streaming faces, like waxworks of forgotten celebrities being melted down before coming back as more contemporary figures.”
― Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye

“Avec l'âge, on devient patient, on ne prête pas au temps plus de valeur qu'il n'en a, on le met dans sa poche avec son mouchoir par-dessus et l'on sirote à petites gorgées le présent comme un verre de porto.”
― Pascal Garnier, Les Hauts du bas

“A l'école, il se portait toujours volontaire pour effacer le tableau. Verbes conjugués, divisions, multiplications, date et morale du jour disparaissaient alors au passage de l'éponge et bientôt ne subsistait sur la surface noire qu'un entrelacs de grands 8 dégoulinants d'une eau laiteuse qui séchait par plaques. Hier devenait demain, un même jour, toujours recommencé, l'éternité au quotidien.”
― Pascal Garnier, Les Hauts du bas

“A few drops of rain splashed down on his feet, and spread like ink on blotting paper. No two fell in the same spot.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes

“There was one point on which they were agreed: there was no way you could play classical music on a white piano.”
― Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye

“The situation was approaching a question of life or death, which can be a hard one to answer.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes

“[T]he stars carried on calmly grazing on nothingness.”
― Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye

“Thérèse attendait Edouard dans une de ces grandes brasseries de la place Bellecour qui vous font l'effet d'être revenu un siècle en arrière; hauts plafonds, corniches tarabiscotées, fresques bucoliques aux teintes pastel, cuivres rutilants, bois ciré, garçons portant long tablier blanc et moustaches en guidon de vélo. La clientèle était à l'avenant. Derrière la vitre, la place au sol de terre battue rouge brique faisait penser à un immense court de tennis au milieu duquel s'élevait, incongrue, la statue équestre de Louis XIV.”
― Pascal Garnier

“Don’t believe what they tell you. There’s nothing above us, and nothing beneath. Just us, here and now, like survivors of a shipwreck.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes

“They had nothing in common except for existing in the same time and space”
― Pascal Garnier, Too Close to the Edge

“. . . a shrunken old man, squashed into the chair like a stubbed-out cigarette.”
― Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye

“Supremely indifferent to the chorus of car horns behind them, they [Breton Movers] took their time maneuvering into position, displaying with their Herculean strength the utmost disdain for the rest of humanity … As in all good criminal bands, the shortest one was the leader. Mind you, what Raymond lacked in height he made up for in width. He looked like an overheated Godin stove. Perhaps it was an occupational hazard, but they each were reminiscent of a piece of furniture: the one called Jean-Jean, a Louis-Phillipe chest of drawers; Ludo, a Normandy wardrobe; and the tall, shifty looking one affectionately known as the Eel, a grandfather clock … Each of them exuded a smell of musk, of wild animal escaped from its cage… Each worker made it clear that (Brice) had no business getting under their feet. At that point, the existential lack of purpose which had dogged him from earliest childhood assumed monumental proportions, and he suggested going to fetch them cold drinks.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes

“Blanche kept up the conversation with the verbal incontinence of someone who hasn’t spoken to another human since the world ended.”
― Pascal Garnier, Boxes