28 Quotes by Jean-Claude Izzo

I’d spent half of my life crying, the other half refusing to cry.

Pleasure involves respect, and respect starts with words.

Leila was untouchable. She was in my heart now, and I’d carry her always, on this earth that every day gives men a chance.

The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture of dust and grease. Verdigris. Books today don’t have a smell. They don’t even smell of print.

But poetry has never had an answer for anything. All it does is bear witness. To despair. And desperate lives.

Nobody was speaking. Only the cicadas continued their whine, indifferent to human tragedies.

After that, we weren’t the same anymore. We’d become men. Disillusioned and cynical. Slightly bitter too. We had nothing. We hadn’t even learned a trade. No future. Nothing but life. But life without a future is worse than no life at all.

We fought over a girl’s smile, not because of the color of our skins. It created friendships, not hatreds.

Ordinary French people. Citizens of fear.