Jean Anouilh

“When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past. . . And when you are seventy, nearly all of you.”

“The object of art is to give life a shape.”

“Things are beautiful if you love them.”

“True miracles are created by men when they use the courage and intelligence that God gave them.”

“To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.”

“Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.”

“God! Is there anything uglier than a frightened man!”

“Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.”

“One cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose.”

“We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.”

“There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy.”

“Talent is a faucet. When it is on, one must write. Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.”

“I spit on your happiness! I spit on your idea of life--that life that must go on, come what may. You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell. You with your promise of a humdrum hap...”

“Our entire life - consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.”

“Life is very nice, but it lacks form. It's the aim of art to give it some.”

“Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.”

“Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.”

“One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.”

“Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.”

“Talent is like a faucet, while it is open, one must write.”