Promise At Dawn Quotes
"Nothing was omitted from the education I was receiving, the purpose of which was to make me a thorough man of the world."
"You will win prizes at the Concours Hippique!"
"Remember that it is far more effective to call in person with a small bouquet than to send a larger one by messenger."
"The unfortunate prostitute who obliges her customer is, in my eyes, a very innocent soul, a provider of daily bread, when one compares her humble venality with the prostitution of our great scientists, always willing to gratify the appetite of authority and to help in the preparation of genetic poisoning or atomic terror."
"I do not know how to speak of her. All I can say is that the sea frees me from all my burdens; whenever I come back to her, it is as though no one had ever died."
"It was thus that I made acquaintance with the absolute, and I shall carry its bite within my soul till the end, and shall be haunted by its source as by some infinite and summoning absence."
"The craving for perfection had just visited me, never again to leave."
"I have never ceased to believe that a marvelous secret lies in wait somewhere around me and I have always walked this earth with the feeling that I am passing close to a buried treasure."
"I often arrange for a showing of his old movies at film societies. He always plays the part of romantic heroes and noble adventurers; he conquers empires single-handed; reigns supreme with sword and pistol; gallops under the eyes of lovely ladies in the white uniform of a guards officer; carries off beautiful captives thrown across the saddle of his horse; endures the most appalling tortures in the service of the Tsar, and always, always, women die of love at his feet."
"I was taught arithmetic, geography, French history and French literature by a succession of tutors whose names and faces have left no more trace on my memory than the subjects they were trying to teach me."
"It was valuable enough to assure our future for some years to come, after we had settled in France; its sale would then make it possible for me to 'grow up, complete my studies and become truly somebody'—the last word always pronounced in a slightly mysterious, meaningful tone of voice."
"I realized that my first duty was to appear imperturbable, manly and detached, steady as a rock."
"I decided that it was all a matter of style."
"I moved through our quickly emptying flat under the very noses of the robbers, with an arrogant air, getting in their way, stepping on their feet."
"Needless to say, this display was not intended for the bailiff’s men, but for my mother."
"She must be made to see that I was there, by her side, that it was only a matter of time before I would give her back a thousand times all she was losing."
"When at last she had to get up from the armchair and abandon it to the rabble, she did so almost gaily and without taking her eyes off me."
"There was no question of our staying on in Vilna, where my mother’s best customers, those who had cajoled and courted her once, now turned up their noses and looked away when they passed us in the street."
"I am not vindictive by nature, and I will say no more."
"With a few hundred zlotys, which we had managed to save from the shipwreck, we decided to go first to Warsaw—it was, after all, a step west, that is, in the right direction."
"The rooms were empty now, and the chandelier, the very symbol of our past splendor, was being lowered from the ceiling."
"I had begun juggling in the old Valentine days, in the hope of finding favor in her eyes, and now I was once more devoting myself to that noble art, with a new fire, with my mother in mind."
"But there again, in spite of all my efforts, in spite of my devouring craving for mastery, the masterpiece always eluded me: I could never get beyond the fifth ball."
"It is a sad truth, and it should not be told to children; that is why this book must not be allowed to fall into their hands."
"Every morning, I step out of my house on the hill above San Francisco and there, in the bright sunlight, into the face of the sky, I juggle defiantly and masterfully with three oranges, which is now as far as I can go."
"Give me a pound of kosher cucumbers, called malosolny in Russian, and I know that life is worth living, that happiness is attainable: it is a matter of loving something worthwhile with all your heart and giving oneself to it completely, without reserve."
"My mother had learned every word of the text and started the proceedings by giving me her own interpretation; then I was told to go through the text again, closely copying her gestures, her poses and her intonations."
"I trust he has warned them of his intention: otherwise they might be worried."
"I shall expect to see you brought back with blood on your face, do you understand?"
"You Poles have a way of going around in circles that has made your nation the dizziest and the most mixed up in the world."
"You are certainly the oldest orphan I have ever met."
"I wonder if I could borrow fifty francs?"
"I’ll think it over," I repeated, rather sternly.
"Thank you," she said. "I know that I am old."
"I don’t think it’s proper for me to mention any names."
"Courage, my son; you will return home crowned with laurels."
"Anyone can see that your mother adores you."
"Two years, at least, lay between me and the moment when I could return home with the stripe of a second lieutenant on my sleeve: the first real triumph of her life."
"Merde," he said. "You lay it on too thick, buddy."
"I don’t know," I said gravely. "We have already had several offers."
"No need to despair, young man," he said. "Twenty is a difficult age."
"We will go to the Russian Church at the Parc Impérial."
"They have no right to ask this of an only son!"
"I felt neither hate nor resentment, only an overpowering desire to vomit."
"In a vague and inexplicable sort of way, I felt myself the ally and defender even of those who had just stabbed me in the back."
"I see History as a relay race in which each one of us, before dropping in his tracks, must carry one stage further the challenge of being a man."
"Human stupidity may make the angels weep, the uniform of a French officer may serve as a nesting place for mediocrity and rabid prejudice."
"I felt tempted to jump onto the platform, to desert, to work my passage on a cargo boat, to enlist in the Foreign Legion and so disappear forever."
"I realized that France was compounded of a thousand different faces, beautiful and ugly, noble and hideous, inspiring and repulsive."
"I refused to find anything final in our biological, intellectual or physical limitations; my hope knows no frontiers."
"I had pushed my cap over one eye and assumed the hard, cynical expression of a true adventurer."
"The only thing that really mattered was to save the picture of France as the land where all the beauty lies and where justice dwells."
"I lay there on my back, tense and eager and smiling in my youthfulness, and I remember that my body was suddenly lifted by an impetuous and imperious physical craving."
"Never have two drowning beings tried so hard to help one another."
"One should never leave the woman one loves; loneliness overwhelms her, doubt and discouragement set in, and, in a moment, the damage is done."
"The war had just been declared all over again; there was no longer any question of backing out."
"In my state of mind, I honestly believe that I wouldn't have let myself be taken alive."
"I had finally consummated my break with the armistice. Now, at last, I was a rebel, a desperado, dangerous, iron-willed, tough—the real thing."
"I clung to my cigar, but cigars have only a short life."
"Life cares little for logic, and can be beautiful without being just."
"We have told one another everything, yet we are still strangers."
"I have wandered in pursuit of something for which art had given me a thirst but which life could not quench."
"The sacred naïveté of the species is still in me."
"I smiled faintly at my naïveté, because I should have known that, so long as she was there beside me, submarines or no submarines, nothing could happen to us."
"I promised her that she would be a great artist, that her works would be translated into all languages and read all over the world."
"I knew that she had eyes in which it was so good to live that I have never since known where to go."
"The only thing that mattered for the time being."
"I can feel all through my body the youth and the courage of those who will come after me."
"My mother smoked continuously and I saw her by my side with such clarity."
"I tried to resurrect a past, a voice, a friend, and he rises again at my side, alive once more."
"I have been defeated, but no more than that."
"My death rattle was, it seems, exactly like the sound made by a soda-water syphon at its last gasp."
"I refused to let my mother’s life end so stupidly in the contagious ward of a Damascus hospital."
"A true artist does not let his material get the better of him."
"You’ll never know where you came back from."
"But they had forgotten to cut the umbilical cord and I survived."
"I, who was no more than a death rattle, said in a loud and intelligible voice: 'No dice—nothing doing.'"
"My life did not belong to me. It was but an instrument of justice."
"Every day I was punctual at my rendezvous with the enemy in the sky."
"It was difficult in such conditions to have much heart for literature."
"I remember that my first thought was: 'Business, at last.'"
"I finished A European Education, sent the manuscript to Moura Budberg."
"I can say that I have always had, in my life, a sure instinct for what is important and what is not."
"I had just been awarded the Cross of the Liberation."
"We do not ask anything from the living and our pride is with the dead."
"My heart was heavy. Something was wrong, something in that letter remained unsaid."
"I am unable to take sides in their quarrels and I remain, with my face raised, watchful and wary, at the foot of heaven, like a forgotten sentry."
"But I have only to raise my hand to see the ocean."
"I have done my best, all that I could do."
"I have served France with all my heart, since that is all that I have left of my mother, except for a small snapshot."
"I close my eyes, I smile, and listen. . . . I still have some curiosity left."