58 Quotes by Francois Mauriac

If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.

 ‘Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are’ is true enough, but I’d know you better if you told me what you reread.

The really pure in heart know nothing of what goes on around them each day, each night; never realize what poisonous weeds spring up beneath their childish feet.

I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted.

The Ladies of the Sacred Heart hung a thousand veils between their little charges and reality. Thérèse despised them for confounding virtue with ignorance.

She was surprised to find that something from deep down in herself welled into her eyes and burned her cheeks: a few poor tears shed by one who never cried!

I felt at one and the same time quite close, within reach of my hand, and yet an infinite distance away, an unknown world of goodness. Often Isa had said to me: 'You, who see nothing but evil.... You, who see evil everywhere....' It was true, and it was not true.

What an odd creature you are, Bernard, with your constant fear of death! Do you never have a feeling, as I do, of utter futility? No? Doesn't it occur to you that the sort of life people like us lead is remarkably like death?

Vivre mais un cadavre entre les mains de ceux qui la haïssent. N'essayer en rien de voir au-delà.