Pierre and Jean quotes
The lines readers remember from Pierre and Jean, by Guy de Maupassant.
16 quotes · About the book
Standout lines
Each of us, then, has simply his own illusion of the world—poetical, sentimental, cheerful, melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature.
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And our brains, duly and differently informed by those organs, apprehend, analyze, and decide as differently as if each of us were a being of an alien race.
Each of us, then, has simply his own illusion of the world—poetical, sentimental, cheerful, melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature.
And the writer has no other mission than faithfully to reproduce this illusion, with all the elaborations of art which he may have learned and have at his command. The illusion of beauty—which is merely a conventional term invented by man!
All the great artists are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.
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The illusion of beauty—which is merely a conventional term invented by man! The illusion of ugliness—which is a matter of varying opinion! The illusion of truth—never immutable! The illusion of depravity—which fascinates so many minds!
All the great artists are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.
Then we must not be wroth with any theory, since each is simply the outcome, in generalizations, of a special temperament analyzing itself.
The stones may indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt simplicity—which has none.
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Those who describe without duly heeding abstract terms, those who make rain and hail fall on the cleanliness of the windowpanes, may throw stones at the simplicity of their brothers of the pen.
The stones may indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt simplicity—which has none.
La Guillette, Étretat, September, 1887.
Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult.
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Roland alone talked on without end; he was one of those whom nothing can disturb.
Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult.
Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the Pearl was making for the harbour, a tiny thing among those huge vessels.
He was hurt somewhere, without knowing where; somewhere within him there was a pinpoint of pain
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He was not distressed by any definite thought, and he would have been puzzled to account, on the spur of the moment, for this dejection of spirit and heaviness of limb.
He was hurt somewhere, without knowing where; somewhere within him there was a pinpoint of pain
—one of those almost imperceptible wounds which we cannot lay a finger on, but which incommode us, tire us, depress us, irritate us—a slight and occult pang, as it were a small seed of distress.
In tearing up the roots of every affection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a lost dog.
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In his hours of greatest suffering he had never felt himself so sunk in a foul pit of misery. It was as though he had given the last wrench; there was no fibre of attachment left.
In tearing up the roots of every affection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a lost dog.
It was no longer a torturing mortal pain, but the frenzy of a forlorn and homeless animal, the physical anguish of a vagabond creature without a roof for shelter, lashed by the rain, the wind, the storm, all the brutal forces of the universe.
All quotes
Of “The Novel”
Whence I conclude that the higher order of Realists should rather call themselves Illusionists.
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“Truth” in such work consists in producing a complete illusion by following the common logic of facts and not by transcribing them pell-mell, as they succeed each other.
Whence I conclude that the higher order of Realists should rather call themselves Illusionists.
How childish it is, indeed, to believe in this reality, since to each of us the truth is in his own mind, his own organs! Our own eyes and ears, taste and smell, create as many different truths as there are human beings on earth.
Each of us, then, has simply his own illusion of the world—poetical, sentimental, cheerful, melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature.
Show the passage
And our brains, duly and differently informed by those organs, apprehend, analyze, and decide as differently as if each of us were a being of an alien race.
Each of us, then, has simply his own illusion of the world—poetical, sentimental, cheerful, melancholy, foul, or gloomy, according to his nature.
And the writer has no other mission than faithfully to reproduce this illusion, with all the elaborations of art which he may have learned and have at his command. The illusion of beauty—which is merely a conventional term invented by man!
All the great artists are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.
Show the passage
The illusion of beauty—which is merely a conventional term invented by man! The illusion of ugliness—which is a matter of varying opinion! The illusion of truth—never immutable! The illusion of depravity—which fascinates so many minds!
All the great artists are those who can make other men see their own particular illusion.
Then we must not be wroth with any theory, since each is simply the outcome, in generalizations, of a special temperament analyzing itself.
The artist who paints our portrait does not display our bones.
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Thus they conceal psychology instead of flaunting it; they use it as the skeleton of the work, just as the invisible bony framework is the skeleton of the human body.
The artist who paints our portrait does not display our bones.
To me it seems that the novel executed on this principle gains also in sincerity. It is, in the first place, more probable, for the persons we see moving about us do not divulge to us the motives from which they act.
Talent is long patience.
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“If you have any originality,” said he, “you must above all things bring it out; if you have not you must acquire it.”
Talent is long patience.
Everything you want to express must be considered so long, and so attentively, as to enable you to find some aspect of it which no one has yet seen and expressed.
The stones may indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt simplicity—which has none.
Show the passage
Those who describe without duly heeding abstract terms, those who make rain and hail fall on the cleanliness of the windowpanes, may throw stones at the simplicity of their brothers of the pen.
The stones may indeed hit their brothers, who have a body, but will never hurt simplicity—which has none.
La Guillette, Étretat, September, 1887.
Chapter I
Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult.
Show the passage
Roland alone talked on without end; he was one of those whom nothing can disturb.
Women, whose nerves are more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of useless speech is as irritating as an insult.
Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the Pearl was making for the harbour, a tiny thing among those huge vessels.
Chapter II
He was hurt somewhere, without knowing where; somewhere within him there was a pinpoint of pain
Show the passage
He was not distressed by any definite thought, and he would have been puzzled to account, on the spur of the moment, for this dejection of spirit and heaviness of limb.
He was hurt somewhere, without knowing where; somewhere within him there was a pinpoint of pain
—one of those almost imperceptible wounds which we cannot lay a finger on, but which incommode us, tire us, depress us, irritate us—a slight and occult pang, as it were a small seed of distress.
Chapter V
The kiss strikes like a thunderbolt, the love passes away like a storm, and then life, like the sky, is calm once more, and begins again as it was before. Do we ever remember a cloud?
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She had surely bewailed her sin, and then, little by little, had almost forgotten it. Have not all women, all, this fault of prodigious forgetfulness which enables them, after a few years, hardly to recognise the man to whose kisses they have given their lips?
The kiss strikes like a thunderbolt, the love passes away like a storm, and then life, like the sky, is calm once more, and begins again as it was before. Do we ever remember a cloud?
Pierre could no longer endure to stay in the room! This house, his father’s house, crushed him. He felt the roof weigh on his head, and the walls suffocate him.
It was a blue day without a breath of wind.
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“Yes, you are right; that is a good idea. I will look for it, as soon as I am up.”
It was a blue day without a breath of wind.
The folks in the streets seemed in good spirits, the merchants going to business, the clerks going to their office, the girls going to their shop. Some sang as they went, exhilarated by the bright weather.
A woman does not misconduct herself because her neighbour has a lover.
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“What does that matter? Is that a reason for living as fools do? If my fellow-townsmen are stupid and ill-bred, need I follow their example?
A woman does not misconduct herself because her neighbour has a lover.
”
Chapter VII
He had been duteous over his tasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studies with credit because his existence was tranquil.
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Never in his life had he had to face a difficulty. There are men who let themselves glide onward like running water.
He had been duteous over his tasks for fear of punishment, and had got through his legal studies with credit because his existence was tranquil.
Everything in the world seemed to him quite natural and never aroused his particular attention. He loved order, steadiness, and peace, by temperament, his nature having no complications;
Chapter VIII
How horrible life is! If by any chance we come across any sweetness in it, we sin in letting ourselves be happy, and pay dearly for it afterward.
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“
How horrible life is! If by any chance we come across any sweetness in it, we sin in letting ourselves be happy, and pay dearly for it afterward.
”
Chapter IX
In tearing up the roots of every affection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a lost dog.
Show the passage
In his hours of greatest suffering he had never felt himself so sunk in a foul pit of misery. It was as though he had given the last wrench; there was no fibre of attachment left.
In tearing up the roots of every affection he had not hitherto had the distressful feeling which now came over him, like that of a lost dog.
It was no longer a torturing mortal pain, but the frenzy of a forlorn and homeless animal, the physical anguish of a vagabond creature without a roof for shelter, lashed by the rain, the wind, the storm, all the brutal forces of the universe.
And he was condemned to this vagabond convict’s life solely because his mother had yielded to a man’s caresses.
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On calm days he would hear the snorting throb of the screw, and feel the swift flight of the ship, bearing him on in its unpausing, regular, exasperating race.
And he was condemned to this vagabond convict’s life solely because his mother had yielded to a man’s caresses.
He walked on, his heart sinking with the despairing sorrow of those who are doomed to exile.
He was so weary of wrestling, weary of fighting, weary of hating, weary of everything, that he was quite worn out, and tried to stupefy his heart with forgetfulness as he dropped asleep.
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He scarcely had the heart left in him to owe anyone or anything a grudge; he let his rebellious wrath float away down stream, as his life must.
He was so weary of wrestling, weary of fighting, weary of hating, weary of everything, that he was quite worn out, and tried to stupefy his heart with forgetfulness as he dropped asleep.
He heard vaguely, all about him, the unwonted noises of the ship, slight noises, and scarcely audible on this calm night in port; and he felt no more of the dreadful wound which had tortured him hitherto, but the discomfort and strain of its healing.
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