FRANCOISE SAGAN

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place.

You should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in New Orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine.

Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.

Marriage? It's like asparagus eaten with vinaigrette or hollandaise, a matter of taste but of no importance.

All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me.

I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the 'fronts' people assume before one another's eyes, and the 'front' a writer puts on the face of reality.

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.

Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

I had a strong desire to write and some free time.

Art must take reality by surprise.

Every time I see a film about Joan of Arc I'm convinced she'll get away with it. It's the only way to get through life.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

It would be bad form for me to describe people I don't know and don't understand.

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

I always believe things are going to work out.

After Proust, there are certain things that simply cannot be done again. He marks off for you the boundaries of your talent.

When you make a decision to write according to a set schedule and really stick to it, you find yourself writing very fast. At least I do.

Passion is the salt of life, and that at the times when we are under its spell this salt is indispensable to us, even if we have got along very well without it before.