34 Quotes by Gabriel Chevallier

What saves doctors' reputations is the fact that many illnesses are benign and that people can go on living with a large number of others, the so-called chronic ones, which destroy only slowly.

The death of the Curé Ponosse occurred in the vintage month, when his beloved Clochemerle was impregnated with the odour of new wine, in the golden glory of a brilliant, hot September. The old priest died in the apotheosis of a great year, famous for its wine, one of those years whose fragrant soul is destined to be poured, later, from bottles, to rejoice the heart of man, to celebrate earth's abundance, the memories of happy days, and perfect summers.

During several centuries Clochemerle, far from the cities and trade routes, had lived in stillness and isolation. But now, at last, the clamour of the great world was crossing the invisible barrier, bringing doubts, temptations, and discontents.

The Church needs a firm hierarchy and is forced to distrust such of her underlings as show a tendency to become too holy.

Some of his colleagues, as he was well aware, even went so far as to say he dishonoured the medical profession. As though it could be dishonoured! There is pain and sickness, agreed. But pain and sickness represent money, and you need money to live, to feel well and look after others. That is the inevitable cycle. When it comes to money, it is difficult to strike a happy mean and stick to it. You either make too much money, or too little. It is safer to make too much.

They had also brought in a piece of human scrap so monstrous that everyone recoiled at the sight, that it shocked men who were no longer shockable. I shut my eyes; I had already seen far too much and I wanted to be able to forget eventually. This thing, this being, screamed in a corner like a maniac. The revulsion that turned our stomachs told us that it would be an act of generosity, a fraternal act, to finish him off.

It was true that the elders found everything changing all about them with a precipitation which was leaving them stripped of authority. The girls (kids they remembered no bigger than that) suddenly flowered and married. The lads returned from their military service with blasé airs and a new vocabulary. A horde of new brats was born, making their disprespectful uproar in Clochemerle.

She was one of those women who are usually referred to in the past tense, of whom one says: 'She had a certain freshness and bloom about her,' and whose freshness and bloom passed unnoticed even when she still had them.

In short, the war got off to a pretty good start, with the help of chaos.