Jean-Christophe Valtat

“When in doubt, do what they do in books, was one of Gabriel's secret mottos and - that rarest of things -…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“He considered each and every second as if he'd never encountered one before, as if the time it kept was a permanent…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“Clusters of distant lights was the view of Mankind that he liked the best. The lights had the archaic charm of little…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“It was the French of the Normans that, grafting itself onto the barbaric Saxon tongue, gave it its most magnificent blossoming. And,…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“She was the living effigy of everything we will never be and, in every sense of the word, she was the retard…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“In English sometimes they call a mentally disabled person a retard, and there is a kind of accidental poetry in naming a…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“She understood nothing, she learned nothing, so she just stood there, lively sometimes, joyful even, a groundless joy that brought tears to…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“But if neither sadness or rage could unite us, I didn't know what could - the more I wanted to identify with…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“Here, too, I recognized-easily, from firsthand experience, since this kind of thing happened at my age-the heat of the moment, the very…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“The blizzard seemed to be dying down, and it was now possible to enjoy the sight of the buildings and embankments and…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“Don't we all discover, at some stage or another that there are some things we'll never get any better at, even though…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“I heard a song that nailed it: "And if the day came when I felt a natural emotion / I'd get such…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“The notion of this powerful childhood gaze was all the more specious given that adults, in the name of that very spontaneity,…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“I didn't like what that word-'childhood'-conjured up, or rather, I didn't like the way most people use it: that presumption of innocence…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat

“I dismissed this course of action, sensing my own reserves of strengths, but I experimented with the idea and took it as…

— Jean-Christophe Valtat