228 Quotes by Romain Gary

Look here, my friend, for three years I was a bus conductor in Paris. I recommend it during rush hours; it gave me what you might call a knowledge of human nature — a good, solid knowledge which prompted me to change sides and go over to the elephants. I hope that’ll do for you, as an explanation.

All who come to me with help are welcome. Nationalism, you know — whether it's white hunters or black hunters, the old ones or the new ones — I’m against 'em all. I'm on the side of anyone who will take the necessary steps.'[...]He added as if incidentally, 'I was in the Resistance, during the Occupation. I fought not so much to defend France against Germany, but to defend elephants against hunters.

To the people, Morel was the hero of a cause that had nothing to do with nations and political ideologies, a cause that had nothing to do with Africa and touched what was deepest in them — a secret rancor — a confused dream of being able one day to emerge victorious from the difficulty of being a man. They were staking a claim to respectful and decent treatment.

-Would you wish us to invest it for you?-No, I would like you to set up a trust for dumb animals.-What kind of dumb animals do you have in mind, Miss Donahue?-Oh, stray dogs. Rats. Birds.-We could still invest it for you. Then the animals would get the income without touching the capital.-No, I don't wish to invest it. I don't want them to get rich. They might become human.

Somewhere, thought Scholscher, in some remote thicket, the corpse of a man was probably rotting away so that his legend might be useful to a cause, an ideology.

For months we had been talking of him and him alone, and yet it was difficult to believe in his existence — he was more like a legend to us — and quite a few of us were convinced that the authorities had invented him, him and his elephants, to distract attention from the political unrest that was the real cause of trouble in the Oule country.

«سکوت دو نفری آدمارو خیلی بهم نزدیک می کنه»

On the whole, people are beginning to understand. Any fellow who's known war, fear, who thinks of his children and of the hydrogen tests, and of political oppression, is beginning to understand that the protection of nature concerns him directly. . .

After all, we emerged from the mud some millions of years ago, and although we got rid of our scales, there is still a long way to go before we become really human — but one of these days we shall triumph over our limitations, over the harsh biological law which has been imposed upon us. Our friend was right: it’s an inhuman law, and it’s high time to change it.Then all that will be left of the infirmity and the challenge of being a man will be one more cast skin by the side of our track.