“Vous avez du poison au coeur, mademoiselle.”

“vous avez poison au coeur”

“Le destin attend toujours au coin de la rue. Comme un voyou, une pute ou un vendeur de loterie : ses trois incarnations favorites. Mais il ne vient pas vous démarcher à domicile. Il faut aller à sa rencontre.”

“Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes.”

“The air seemed poisoned with fear and hatred. People eyed on another suspiciously, and the streets smelled of a silence that knotted your stomach.”

“The words with which a child’s heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.”

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.”