33 Quotes by Jean-Dominique Bauby

I could spend whole days at Cinecittà. There, I am the greatest director of all time. On the town side, I reshoot the close-ups for Touch of Evil. Down at the beach, I rework the dolly shots for Stagecoach, and offshore I re-create the storm rocking the smugglers of Moonfleet.

Vincent had ten major ideas every week: three brilliant, five good, and two ridiculous.

We thread our way through a moving forest of ice-cream cones and crimson thighs.

In the past, it was known as a "massive stroke," and you simply died. But improved resuscitation techniques have now prolonged and refined the agony.

When I began a diet a week before my stroke, I never dreamed of such a dramatic result.

France was at peace; one couldn't shoot the bearers of bad news.

Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing.

In that hothouse atmosphere, criminal records bloomed like orchids all around us.

You can handle the wheelchair," said the occupational therapist, with a smile intended to make the remark sound like good news, whereas to my ears it had the ring of a life sentence.