Jean-Claude Izzo

“Killing was easy. Dying was something else.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“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…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

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

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Ordinary French people. Citizens of fear.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

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

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“It's at moment of misfortune that we remember we're all exiles.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

The sensuality of desperate lives. Only poets talk like that. But poetry has never had an answer for anything. All it does…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Our taste for books came from Antonin, an old second-hand bookseller, an anarchist, whose shop was on Cours Julien. We'd cut classes…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“I don't like answering private questions. The answers are often ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways. Even when the other…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

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

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“So much violence. If God existed, I'd have strangled him on the spot. Without batting an eyelid. And with all the fury…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

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

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Days are only beautiful early in the morning. I should have remembered that. Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“You ought to get out more. You know, Pérol, we should go out some evening, just you and me. Otherwise, you lose…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“...I understand where you're coming from. I know it isn't just a question of revenge. It's the feeling there are some things…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“The one thing I could give them was a smile. I've always been good at smiles.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

I was the last, the sole survivor. The most honorable thing a survivor could do was survive. If you stayed on your…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“We were all moving to a pre-ordained end. You just had to open the papers and read the international news, or the…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Happiness. One day. Ten thousand years ago.”

— Jean-Claude Izzo

“Why was it so difficult to make new friends once you were past forty Was it because we didn't have dreams anymore,…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

Sometimes, all it takes is one gesture, one word, to change the course of someone's life. Even if you know it won't…

— Jean-Claude Izzo

Pleasure involves respect, and respect starts with words.

— Jean-Claude Izzo

Marseilles isn't a city for tourists. There's nothing to see. Its beauty can't be photographed. It can only be shared. It's a…

— Jean-Claude Izzo