“I am a complete slave to vocabulary, I ought to have named my cat Roget.” — Muriel Barbery Cats Copy Share Image
To the rich, therefore, falls the burden of Beauty. And if they cannot assume it, then they deserve to die. — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
As far as I can see, only psychoanalysis can compete with Christians in their love of drawn-out suffering. — Muriel Barbery Christian Copy Share Image
“What do these onlookers see as they bend over my broken body? I do not know. But inside me, the sun.” — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“God appeases our animal fears and the unbearable prospect that someday all our pleasures will cease.” — Muriel Barbery Animals Copy Share Image
“Ecco a cosa serve il presente: a costruire il futuro con veri progetti di vita.” — Muriel Barbery Amor Copy Share Image
The only purpose of cats is that they constitute mobile decorative objects. — Muriel Barbery Cat Copy Share Image
...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
Because beauty consits of it's own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment,… — Muriel Barbery Beauty Copy Share Image
“...the vulgarity of an environment as bleakly desolate as the neon lights of the factory where the men go each morning, like… — Muriel Barbery Nature Copy Share Image
It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
What makes the strength of a soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“How distressing to stumble on a dominant social habitus, just when one was convinced of one’s own uniqueness in the matter!” — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“We live each day as if it were merely a rehearsal for the next, and the cosy existence at 7, rue de… — Muriel Barbery Life Copy Share Image
“To tell a group of adolescents who already know how to speak and write that that is the purpose of grammar is… — Muriel Barbery Grammar Copy Share Image
Sashimi is velvet dust, verging on silk, or a bit of both, and the extraordinary alchemy of its gossamer essence allows it… — Muriel Barbery Alchemy Copy Share Image
“How ironic! After decades of grub, deluges of wine and alcohol of every sort, after a life spent in butter, cream, rich… — Muriel Barbery Ironic Copy Share Image
This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with… — Muriel Barbery Certainty Copy Share Image
“Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born,… — Muriel Barbery Human life Copy Share Image
Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea.… — Muriel Barbery Autumn Copy Share Image
“In a world full of fossils, the slightest movement of a pebble on the slope of the cliff is nearly enough to… — Muriel Barbery Cliff Copy Share Image
Civilization is the mastery of violence, the triumph, constantly challenged, over the aggressive nature of the primate. For primates we have been… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
..when I say that "he's a truly nasty man," I mean he has so thoroughly renounced everything good that he might have… — Muriel Barbery Alive Copy Share Image
“I wonder if I am not turning into a contemplative . . . But those roses . They were something else. I… — Muriel Barbery Beauty Copy Share Image
“The first time he consulted me, I caught a glimpse of my salvation. He made a gift to me of the very… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“All our family acquaintances have followed the same path: their youth spent trying to make the most of their intelligence, squeezing their… — Muriel Barbery Family Copy Share Image
“A flavor...what do you think, old madman, what do you think? That if you find a lost flavor you will eradicate decades… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build… — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
“It's one of my profound thoughts, but it came from another profound thought. It was one of Papa's guests, at the dinner… — Muriel Barbery Dinner party Copy Share Image
There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in… — Muriel Barbery Beauty Copy Share Image
“Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year… — Muriel Barbery Choir Copy Share Image
I may know that the world is an ugly place, I still don't want to see it. — Muriel Barbery Copy Share Image
