68 Quotes by Georges Simenon

I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.

Sunday lay so heavily in the air as to become almost nauseating. Maigret used to claim openly, half seriously, half in fun, that he had always had the knack of sensing a Sunday from his bed, without even having to open his eyes.

It was the serene cheerfulness of a man who has no nightmares, who feels at peace with himself and everyone else. They [Americans] were almost all of them like that. And it definitely got Maigret’s back up. It made him think of clothing that was too neat, too clean, too well-pressed.

The weather was so contrary and fierce that the rain wasn't mere rain or the wind freezing wind - this was a conspiracy of the elements.

Maigret had often tried to get other people, including men of experience, to admit that those who fall, especially those who have a morbid determination to descend ever lower, are almost always idealists.

She must have been pretty once. At least, like everyone, she had been young. Now her eyes, her mouth, her whole body exuded weakness. Could it be that she was ill and waiting for her next attack? Some people who know that at a particular hour they are going to start suffering again have that expression, subdued and yet tense, like drug addicts waiting for the hour of their dose.

Aveau destul timp, și unul și altul, întreg timpul care îi va separa din momentul în care unul din ei ar muri.

The sun finally died in beauty, flinging out its crimson flames, which cast their reflection on the faces of passers-by, giving them a strangely feverish look. The darkness of the trees became deeper. You could hear the Seine flowing. Sounds carried farther, and people in their beds could feel, as they did every night, the vibration of the ground as buses rolled past.

The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn't go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.