Marcel Schwob Quotes

#1. It was at this time that people found along the roads and highways little children, tiny vagabonds who refused to grow up. Little girls of seven years knelt and prayed that they might not grow older, for puberty seemed to them a sign of mortality.

Marcel Schwob

#2. There is no science for the teguments of a leaf, for the filaments of a cell structure, the winding of a vein, the passion of a habit, or for the twists and quirks of character.

Marcel Schwob

#3. With your left foot you shall wipe out the footprint of your right foot.

Marcel Schwob

#4. As masks are the sign that there are faces, words are the sign that there are things. And these things are the sign of the incomprehensible.

Marcel Schwob

#5. Do not be surprised,' she said. 'It is I, and it is not I; You shall find me again, and you shall lose me; Once more shall I come among you; for few men have seen me, and none has understood me; And you shall forget me, and you shall recognize me, and you shall forget me.

Marcel Schwob

#6. This house could have been a prison or a hospital, but a prison where they locked up the innocent to prevent them from suffering, or a hospital where one goes to recover from the labor of life. And Monelle was both the jailer and the nurse.

Marcel Schwob

#7. Look: each moment is a cradle and a casket: may all life and all death seem strange to you.

Marcel Schwob

#8. Monelle grew quiet and looked at me: I came from the night, she said, and I shall return to the night. For I too am a young prostitute.

Marcel Schwob

#9. Say not: I live today, I shall die tomorrow. Divide not reality between life and death. Say: now I live and die.

Marcel Schwob