"She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that."
"Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty."
6 likes
Source: Guy de Maupassant (1903). “The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant: Ten Volumes in One”
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Guy de Maupassant
"To love very much is to love inadequately; we love-that is all. Love cannot be modified without being nullified. Love is a short word but it contains everything. Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe the air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Love is not a word; it is a wordless state indicated by four letters."
"You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government."
"Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist."
"Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare."
"The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death."