At times like this you desperately need Art. You seek to reconnect with your spiritual illusions, and you wish fervently that something might rescue you from your biological destiny, so that all poetry and grandeur will not be cast out from the world.

— Muriel Barbery

Muriel Barbery Quotes

The only purpose of cats is that they constitute mobile decorative objects.

— Muriel Barbery

That’s what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people. – The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

— Muriel Barbery

Melancholy overwhelms me at supersonic speed.

— Muriel Barbery

Beautiful things should belong to beautiful souls.

— Muriel Barbery

We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.

— Muriel Barbery

Don’t let the cat out or the concierge in: this is the first principle of socialist ladies.

— Muriel Barbery

I may be indigent in name, position, and in appearance, but in my own mind I am an unrivaled goddess -.

— Muriel Barbery

Don’t worry Renee, I won’t commit suicide and I won’t burn a thing. Because from now on, for you, I’ll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world.

— Muriel Barbery

Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed.

— Muriel Barbery

What is writing, no matter how lavish the pieces, if it says nothing of the truth, cares little for the heart, and is merely subservient to the pleasure of showing one’s brilliance.

— Muriel Barbery

We never look beyond our assumptions and what’s worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves.

— Muriel Barbery

I am going to die, but that is of no importance.

— Muriel Barbery

How to measure a life’s worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.

— Muriel Barbery

But the world, in its present state, is no place for princesses.

— Muriel Barbery

We don’t recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were able to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.

— Muriel Barbery

So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I’d better not miss it, because once you’re dead, it’s too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

— Muriel Barbery

If you want to heal Heal others And smile or weep At this very happy reversal of fate.

— Muriel Barbery

When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

— Muriel Barbery

What is an aristocrat? A woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it.

— Muriel Barbery

It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin C, however much they nurture us, cannot save lives, or sustain our souls.

— Muriel Barbery
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