Georges Simenon Quotes

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.

We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.

It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.

The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn't go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.

The poor are used to stifling any expression of their despair, because they must get on with life, with work, with the demands made of them day after day, hour after hour.

His mouth open, he fell asleep, because a man always falls asleep in the end. One weeps, one shrieks, one rages, one despairs, and then one eats and sleeps as if nothing had happened.

They never addressed each other by name, nor were they in the habit of exchanging endearments. What was the point, since both felt that, in many ways, they were one person?

Human tragedies are always simple when we reconsider them in retrospect.

I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.

Si parte da un dettaglio qualsiasi, talvolta di poco conto, e senza volerlo si giunge a scoprire grandi princìpi.

Why, despite the blinding brightness, did everything look gray? It was as if the painfully sharp lights were helpless to dispel all the darkness the people had brought in from the night outside.

And Boucard desisted, probably because like everyone else he was deeply impressed by this man who had laid all ghosts, who had lost all shadows, and who stared you in the eyes with cold serenity.

Ce n’est pas possible d’éplucher des pommes de terre et de gratter des carottes en combinaison.

The inspector knew the mentality of malefactors, criminals and crooks. He knew that you always find some kind of passion at the root of it.

He distrusted ideas, as they were always too rigid to reflect reality, which, as he knew from experience, was very fluid.

He was a big, bony man. Iron muscles shaped his jacket sleeves and quickly wore through new trousers. He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there.

C'era un'atmosfera da domenica sera, quando ci si sente fiacchi senza aver fatto nulla, invasi da un molle torpore, e i minuti scorrono più lenti che gli altri giorni.

We’re a bit like criminal lawyers. We’re the public face of things, but it’s the civil lawyers who do the serious work, in the shadows.

She came forward, the outlines of her figure blurred in the half-light. She came forward like a film star, or rather like the ideal woman in an adolescent's dream.

If I try to define my state as accurately as possible, I'd say that I possessed a warped lucidity. Reality existed around me, and I was in contact with it. I was aware of my actions.

È terribile pensare che siamo tutti uomini, tutti destinati, chi più chi meno, a portare il nostro fardello sotto un cielo sconosciuto, e che non vogliamo fare il minimo sforzo per capirci a vicenda.

It was the serene cheerfulness of a man who has no nightmares, who feels at peace with himself and everyone else. They [Americans] were almost all of them like that. And it definitely got Maigret’s back up. It made him think of clothing that was too neat, too clean, too well-pressed.

The change in the girl's face was more subtle, almost invisible; it was not joy, there was no sparkle, but something like a serene contentment. It was as though she had ripened, as though there were a growing plenitude in her, never there before.

Ayon kay Georges Simenon, ang dahilan daw ng pagsusulat n'ya ay "to exorcise the demon in me." Totoo yon para sa karamihan ng mga manunulat. Ang pagpuksa sa mga personal na demonyo ang nagsilbing makina sa likod ng mga di na mabilang na sanaysay, kwento, at tula. Ang manunulat ay biktima ng isang sumpa na para sa karaniwang tao ay ligo lang ang katapat.

Questa volta lui fu incapace di girare la testa dall'altra parte, tanto il suo volto lo affascinava. Mai neppure nei momenti in cui i loro corpi erano stati più uniti, l'aveva trovata così bella, così raggiante. Mai aveva visto sulla sua bocca carnosa un sorriso che esprimesse così intensamente il trionfo dell'amore. Mai, con un solo sguardo, si era impossessata di lui in modo così totale. «Lo vedi, Tony,» gli gridò «non ci hanno separati!».

È conoscendo meglio la vittima che in genere si scopre l'assassino.

The weather was so contrary and fierce that the rain wasn't mere rain or the wind freezing wind - this was a conspiracy of the elements.

El crimen no cuenta… Cuenta lo que ocurre, o ha ocurrido, en la mente de quien lo comete. GEORGES SIMENON

He had read endless books, he had digested them, pondered over them. Day by day, year after year, he had turned over all the problems of human beings. Yet there were all sorts of simple things he didn't know how to do: he couldn't even walk into an inn and sit down at a table.

Maigret had often tried to get other people, including men of experience, to admit that those who fall, especially those who have a morbid determination to descend ever lower, are almost always idealists.

The fine and varied literature that I read was almost all in translation: from classic works by Jack London, Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, to detective stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon, not to mention fascinating pornographic books. I also appreciated the biblical stories that contained all three genres.

INTERVIEWER What do you mean by “too literary”? What do you cut out, certain kinds of words? SIMENON Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut.

«Novità, signor Féron?». «I tedeschi hanno invaso l'Olanda». «La notizia è ufficiale? ». «Viene dal Belgio». «E Parigi?» «Parigi trasmette musica».

There’s no skill and no grace to it, but you

Civilised men fear wild creatures, especially wild creatures of their own kind who remind them of life in the primeval forests of past ages.

You came to France to find out about our methods, and you will have observed that we don't have any.

Maigret never took notes. If he had a propelling pencil in his hand and a paper in front of him, it was only to make doodles that had no connection with the case.

You expect all kinds of things, but what real life throws up is always more bizarre.

Aveva comunque il fascino di certi tisici: lineamenti delicati, pelle trasparente, labbra sensuali e insieme beffarde.

When he went out it was freezing, and a pale winter sun was rising over Paris. No thought of escape had as yet crossed Monsieur Monde's mind. 'Morning, Joseph.' 'Morning, monsieur.' As a matter of fact, it started like an attack of flu. In the car he felt a shiver. He was very susceptible to head colds. Some winters they would hang on for weeks, and his pockets would be stuffed with wet handkerchiefs, which mortified him. Moreover, that morning he ached all over, perhaps from having slept in an awkward position, or was it a touch of indigestion due to last night's supper? 'I'm getting flu,' he thought. Then, just as they were crossing the Grands Boulevards, instead of automatically checking the time on the electric clock as he usually did, he raised his eyes and noticed the pink chimney pots outlined against a pale blue sky where a tiny white cloud was floating. It reminded him of the sea. The harmony of blue and pink suddenly brought a breath of Mediterranean air to his mind, and he envied people who, at that time of year, lived in the South and wore white flannels.

Era vero. In quel momento tutto era vero, perché viveva ogni cosa cosi come veniva, senza chiedersi niente, senza cercare di capire, senza neppure sospettare che un giorno ci sarebbe stato qualcosa da capire.

I’m at sea, lieutenant … We probably both are. Except that you, you fight the waves, you mean to go in a definite direction, whereas I let myself drift with the current, clutching here and there on a passing branch.

Take trains, for instance. He was no longer a child, and it wasn’t anything mechanical about them that attracted him. If he had a preference for night trains, it was because he sensed in them something strange, almost wicked

At five-thirty the rain began to fall in great, heavy drops which bounced off the pavement before they spread out into black spots. At the same time thunder rumbled from the direction of Charenton and an eddy of wind lifted the dust, carried away the hats of passers-by who took to their heels and who, after a few confused moments, were all in the shelter of doorways or under the awnings of cafe terraces. Street pedlars of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine scurried about with an apron or a sack over their heads, pushing their carts as they tried to run. Rivulets already began to flow along the two sides of the street, the gutters sang, and on every floor you could see people hurriedly closing their windows.

Sapeva solo che quella passeggiata sotto il sole, accompagnata dalla vocetta di sua figlia, era dolce e malinconica al tempo stesso. Si sentiva felice e triste. Ma non a causa di Andrêe né di Nicolas. Non ricordava di averci pensato. Felice e triste come la vita, così avrebbe voluto dire.

I felt for too long anyway that there was something creaky about this story. You needn’t try to understand, but when all the material clues manage to confuse matters rather than clarify them, it means they’ve been faked … and everything, without exception, is fake in this case. It all creaked.

The sun finally died in beauty, flinging out its crimson flames, which cast their reflection on the faces of passers-by, giving them a strangely feverish look. The darkness of the trees became deeper. You could hear the Seine flowing. Sounds carried farther, and people in their beds could feel, as they did every night, the vibration of the ground as buses rolled past.

She must have been pretty once. At least, like everyone, she had been young. Now her eyes, her mouth, her whole body exuded weakness. Could it be that she was ill and waiting for her next attack? Some people who know that at a particular hour they are going to start suffering again have that expression, subdued and yet tense, like drug addicts waiting for the hour of their dose.

What Zograffi would have to realize was that Elie had come to the end, and there was no farther-on for him. Nothing. Emptiness. They could do anything to him they liked. They could prescribe any punishment. But they mustn't force him to leave. That was beyond him. he would rather sit down on the curbstone and let himself die there in the sun. He was tired. For the others, for a man like Zograffi, did that word have the terrible significance it had for him?

That feeling about trains, for instance. Of course he had long outgrown the boyish glamour of the steam-engine. Yet there was something that had an appeal for him in trains, especially in night-trains, which always put queer, vaguely improper notions in his head - though he would have been hard put to it to define them. Also he had an impression that those who leave by night-trains leave forever - an impression heightened the previous night by his glimpse of those Italians piled into their carriage like emigrants

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

Il fait courir

subitement…

THE LITTLE HOUSE AT CROIX-ROUSSE Georges Simenon

Indeed, Georges Simenon, one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, only wrote sixty days a year, with three hundred days spent “doing nothing.” He published more than two hundred novels.

Non erano mai stati due in nessun altro posto, se non quando avevano fatto l'amore per la prima volta, fra l'erba alta e le ortiche al margine del bosco di Sarelle. - La camera azzurra

Si vergognava di averle ascoltate senza ribellarsi, odiava il Tony che in piedi davanti allo specchio si tamponava il sangue sul labbro, fiero di starsene tutto nudo in un raggio di sole, di essere un bel maschio che si lasciava ammirare, fiero di vedere il suo sperma colare dalla vulva di una femmina. - La camera azzurra

Non si passa la vita a letto, in una camera vibrante di sole, abbandonandosi al furore di due corpi nudi. - La camera azzurra

marmots, trinquer

d’affilée.

presse-papiers, entrouvrant

I’m worried that the chicken may be overcooked …’ she said as she served Maigret. And her tone was the one in which she might have said, for example: ‘I’m afraid of everything! I don’t know what’s going on. Holy Virgin, protect me!

A fisherman, who had just speared an octopus with his trident, was skinning it as its tentacles rolled around his tattooed arm.

It seemed to him that he was compelled, by virtue of his wretched calling, to live the lives of a whole lot of other people, instead of quietly getting on with his own.

Maigret had always had a weakness for kitchens, with their appetizing smells and piles of good things to eat, plump vegetables, juicy meat, poultry waiting to be plucked.

Hammett, David Morrell, Michael Crichton, and even Georges Simenon translations.

It was hard to define the expression he found in Lulu’s photographs, an expression she must have had in life. It wasn’t sadness, but rather the sullen expression of a little girl who keeps to herself in the school playground and watches her schoolmates play. He would have been hard put to explain in what way she had been attractive, but he sensed it and he had often, in spite of himself, questioned such girls more gently than others.

It showed 9.30. In Paris, on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, if spring had also come at last, Madame Maigret in her dressing gown and slippers would have opened the windows and tidied the bedroom while a stew simmered on the stove.

A lo veinte años, cuando te separas, estamos todos, si puedo decirlo, en la misma línea... Cuando te ves después, nos sorprende el abismo que se cruza entre unos y otros... El ahorcado de Saint Pholien

(...) fue el único que rió, como demostraba necesitar siempre hacerlo, como un niño que tiene miedo de descender a la cueva y que silba para convencerse de que tiene valor. El ahorcado de Saint Pholien

Sunday lay so heavily in the air as to become almost nauseating. Maigret used to claim openly, half seriously, half in fun, that he had always had the knack of sensing a Sunday from his bed, without even having to open his eyes.

There was still the dirty snow, piles of it that looked like they were rotting, stained black, peppered with garbage. The white powder that loosed itself from the sky in small handfuls, like plaster falling from a ceiling, never managed to cover up the filth.

Nem lehet boldoggá tenni az embereket akaratuk ellenére... Viszont ami a boldogtalanná tevést illeti...

Savez-vous que c'est à cause de cette recherche de ce que j'appellerais les compensations, cette rechercher d'un bonheur malgré tout, que naissent les manies et, souvent, les déséquilibres.

How long’s the ride?” I asked. Berleand looked at his wristwatch. “About thirty seconds.” He may have overestimated. I had, in fact, seen the building before—the “bold and stark” sandstone fortress sitting across the river. The mansard roofs were gray slate, as were the cone-capped towers scattered through the sprawl. We could have easily walked. I squinted as we approached. “You recognize it?” Berleand said. No wonder it had grabbed my eye before. Two armed guards moved to the side as our squad car pulled through the imposing archway. The portal looked like a mouth swallowing us whole. On the other side was a large courtyard. We were surrounded now on all sides by the imposing edifice. Fortress, yeah, that did fit. You felt a bit like a prisoner of war in the eighteenth century. “Well?” I did recognize it, mostly from books by Georges Simenon and because, well, I just knew it because in law-enforcement circles it was legendary. I had entered the courtyard of 36 quai des Orfèvres—the renowned French police headquarters. Think Scotland Yard. Think Quantico. “Soooo,” I said, stretching the word out, gazing through the window, “whatever this is, it’s big.” Berleand turned both palms up. “We don’t process traffic violations here.” Count

Maigret avait déjà tenté de faire admettre par d'autres, y compris par des hommes d'expérience, que ceux qui dégringolent, en particulier ceux qui mettent un acharnement morbide à descendre toujours plus bas et qui se salissent à plaisir, sont presque toujours des idéalistes.

Era come se la mia vista fosse diventata troppo acuta, come se, per esempio, fosse improvvisamente diventata sensibile ai raggi ultravioletti. Ed ero l’unico che vedesse gli altri in quel modo, l’unico che si agitasse in un mondo ignaro di quello che stava succedendo a me. Per anni e anni, insomma, avevo vissuto senza accorgermene. Avevo fatto tutto quello che mi avevano detto di fare con scrupolo, meglio che potevo: ma senza cercare di conoscerne il motivo, senza cercare di capire.

He now understood deathbed dramas. Everybody thinks about death. But only one person thinks about it for himself. The others know that in the morning the sun will come through the blinds and their coffee will be served." From "The Reckoning

Arrivava solido come il granito, e da quel momento pareva che tutto dovesse spezzarsi contro di lui, sia che avanzasse, sia che restasse piantato sulle gambe leggermente divaricate.

Sono cose di cui non ci si vanta, cose che a parlarne farebbero sorridere e che pure richiedono una certa dose di eroismo.

So, I am not mad, nor am I a sex maniac. Simply, at the age of forty, I have decided to live as I please, not worrying about conventions, or laws, because I have found out, rather late in the day, that nobody observes them and that, until now, I have been duped.

It’s just that life, with its betrayals, compromises and its overriding demands, is stronger.

Perhaps it wasn't she that I loved, but life?

Era proprio quello il problema! Mettersi a nudo l’uno davanti all’altro. Non i corpi. Quello che avevano dentro. Tutti quei pensieri evanescenti che affollano la testa di ciascuno e appartengono solo a lui.

Σίγουρα μερικοί προτιμούν να μη βλέπω κάποια πράγματα. Αλλά κυρίως αυτό που δεν πρέπει με τίποτα να κάνω είναι να τους μιλάω για κάποια άλλα." "-Θα τα πείτε όλα; - Και εσείς; -Θα προσπαθήσω. Αν δεν το καταφέρω, θα κατηγορώ τον εαυτό μου σε όλη μου τη ζωή.

I’d read the entire published works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett twice; I’d read Rex Stout and Ross Macdonald and Georges Simenon.

il a beaucoup plus de jugeote qu’il n’en a l’air…

It was only now, at this precise moment, that Maigret became fully aware of the situation. He literally saw himself, sitting comfortably in his armchair, his legs stretched towards the fire, warming his glass of armagnac in the hollow of his hand. He realized that it wasn’t he who was talking, asking questions, but this short, thin, calm man, the same man who, only a few minutes earlier, had been dragging a dead body to the sea.

The most remarkable thing was that Maigret already believed him! It was as if he were under a spell in this silent house where nothing could be heard but the crackling of the logs and where, during the silences, you were aware of the distant murmur of the sea.

The judge sighed and said something unexpected: ‘This is all very regrettable, inspector!’ Overhead, the piano was still being played, and Chopin’s chords harmonized perfectly with the atmosphere of this grand house where life should have been so sweet. ‘See you later!’ Maigret said abruptly, like a man resisting temptation.

Everyone was watching Maigret. Children followed him, one of them imitating his heavy gait.

Maigret books of Georges Simenon

They were reorganizing, as they called it. In the silence of their offices, well-educated, well-brought-up young men from the best families in the country were examining all sides of the matter in a quest for greater efficiency. What emerged from their learned cogitations were hare-brained schemes that found expression every week in new rules.

He rarely spoke about his job, and even more rarely expressed an opinion about men and their institutions. He distrusted ideas, as they were always too rigid to reflect reality, which, as he knew from experience, was very fluid. It was only with his friend Pardon, the doctor from Rue Popincourt, that he sometimes, after dinner, came out with what might, at a pinch, pass for revelations.

Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Flying Squad raised his eyes. It seemed to him that the cast-iron stove in the middle of his office with its chimney tube rising to the ceiling wasn’t roaring properly. He pushed the telegram away, rose ponderously to his feet, adjusted the flue and thrust three shovels of coal into the firebox.

On the second floor he read the numbers on the bronze plaques. The door of no. 17 was open. Valets with striped waistcoats were bringing in the luggage. The traveller had taken off his cloak and looked very slender and elegant in his pinstripe suit. He was smoking a papirosa and giving instructions at the same time.

Was it he who had shacked up with the two Martini women, the mother with the plastered face and the daughter with the callipygian figure? … Was it he who had immersed himself blissfully in the crapulous laziness of the Liberty Bar? …

Inside every wrong-doer and crook there lives a human being. In addition, of course, there is an opponent in a game, and it’s the player that the police are inclined to see. As a rule, that’s what they go after.

Maigret worked like any other policeman. Like everyone else, he used the amazing tools that men like Bertillon, Reiss and Locard have given the police – anthropometry, the principle of the trace, and so forth – and that have turned detection into forensic science. But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

on the story. The other,