67 Quotes by Pascal Mercier

But when we set out to understand somebody’s inside? Is that a trip that ever ends? Is the soul a place of facts? Or are the alleged facts only the deceptive shadows of our stories?

Of the thousand experiences we have, we find language for one at most and even this one merely by chance and without the care it deserves.

What did i know of your fantasies? Why do we know so little about the fantasies of our parents? What do we know of somebody if we know nothing of the images passed to him by his imagination?

We are stratified creatures, creatures full of abysses, with a soul of inconstant quicksilver, with a mind whose color and shape change as in a kaleidoscope that is constantly shaken.

So, the fear of death might be described as the fear of not being able to become whom one had planned to be.

Isn’t it true that it’s not people who meet, but rather the shadows cast by their imaginations?

Can God create a stone He couldn’t lift? If not, then He isn’t almighty; if yes, then He isn’t either, for now there is a stone He cannot lift.

Extortion through trust. “Patients confided the most intimate things to him, and also the most dangerous,” said Adriana. “Politically dangerous, I mean. And then they expected him to divulge something too. So they wouldn’t have to feel naked. He hated that. He hated it from the bottom of his heart. I don’t want anybody to expect anything of me, he said then and stamped his foot. And why the devil is it so hard to keep my distance?

They aren’t texts, Gregorius. What people say aren’t texts. They simply talk.