Jacqueline Harpman Quotes

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.

My memory begins with my anger.

Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others".

Being beautiful, was that for men?' 'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.

Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death.

I cannot mourn for what I have not known.

Inevitably, with memory comes pain.

Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else.

I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror

Talking is existing.

Because I want to know! Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that's not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it's any use, but for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I will never be able to use it.

Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: “Lord, if you’re up there somewhere, and you aren’t too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I’m very lonely and it would make me so happy.” Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity— which I wonder whether I belong to —really had a very vivid imagination.

even a person raised in captivity learns to want, yearns to see beyond their cage. How much of our humanity is intrinsic? How much remains, when all else is stripped away?

It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods, I who have never known men.

I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip for ever, that it would prevent me from devoting myself to anything else, and that I was allowing it to do so. I think that is what they call being consumed with remorse.

If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn't forbidden, and they intervene, then it's not the activity that's attracting the attention, it is you yourself.

I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious.

Death is sometimes so discreet that it steals in noiselessly, stays for only a moment and carries off its prey...

One after the other, they were buried under that sky and neither they nor I knew if it was the one under which we'd been born.

this slow dissipation, the gradual abandonment of all expectations, a defeat that had killed everything without a battle.

Sometimes the women pitied me, saying that at least they'd known real life, and I was very jealous of them, but they died, as I am about to die, and what does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?

But I had only known the absurd, and I think that made me profoundly different from them

The reader and I thus mingled will constitute something living, that will not be me, because I will be dead, and will not be that person as they were before reading, because my story, added to their mind, will then become part of their thinking.

There's no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I haven't heard its music, I haven't seen its painting, I haven't read its books... I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.

I wondered what would make me stop, whether it would be hunger, sleep or boredom – in other words, what prompts decisions when you are utterly alone.

in the face of horror, ancient rituals regained their meaning

what does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?

Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence.

Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first.

You are the only one of us who belongs to this country. No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine.

Perhaps you never have time when are you alive? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others.

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little, I thought.

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.

It is impossible to predict what might happen in a world where you don't know the rules.

I only know the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.

Every thirty days, I say to myself that a month has gone by, but those are mere words, they don’t really give me time. Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others,

Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were probably what the women called love.

For the first time, I understood that I was living at the very heart of despair. I had insulated myself from it, believing that it was out of bitterness, but suddenly I realised it was out of caution.

They bustled around chatting. It was the first time I listened closely, and I was astonished at how much they had to say, the passion with which they repeated the same thing in ten different ways so as to avoid noticing, in fact, that they had absolutely nothing to say to each other for ages, but human beings need to speak, otherwise they lose their humanity

We have no future any more. All we can do is entertain ourselves by conversing.

Whether it was their fault or not, they’d gone mad by force of circumstance, they’d lost their reason because nothing in their lives made sense any more.

I have spent my whole life doing I don’t know what, but it hasn’t made me happy.

No life is ordinary. No life is without hope, without light, even during the unimaginable.

We came to the conclusion that they left you here because any decision can be analysed, and that their lack of decision indicated the only thing they wanted us to know, which is that we must know nothing.

I received that caress several times - the only one I was able to tolerate - the silent gratitude of a woman receiving death at my hands. None wanted to endure pain and I think they were in a hurry to die. I don't know how many I killed - I who count everything, that was one thing I didn't count.

Something that everybody does becomes meaningless

Even now, I like to look in the mirror. Over the years, I’ve followed the progress of the wrinkles furrowing my brow. My cheeks have grown thinner and my lips have become pale, but it’s all me and I feel a sort of fondness for the reflection in the mirror. [...] I was just over forty. That was twenty-two years ago. I suppose I am an old woman, but I still love looking at my face. I don’t know if it’s beautiful or ugly, but it is the only human face I ever see. I smile at it and receive a friendly smile back.

Hope can blossom even in the harshest of environments.

Nothing was ordinary, since nothing had ever happened to me.

As long as the sheets of paper covered in my handwriting lie on this table, I can become a reality in someone’s mind.

a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious.

how can you feel privileged not to have something that everyone else has?

But human beings need to speak, otherwise they lose their humanity, as I've realized these past few years.

Et là, secouée par les sanglots, je me suis trouvée acculée, trop tard, bien trop tard, à me rendre compte que moi aussi j'avais aimé, que je pouvais souffrir, et que, en somme, j’étais humaine.

The alternation of day and night is merely a physical phenomenon, time is a question of being human and, frankly, how could I consider myself a human being, I who have only known thirty-nine people and all of them women? I think that time must have something to do with the duration of pregnancies, the growth of children, all those things that I haven’t experienced. If someone spoke to me, there would be time, the beginning and end of what they said to me, the moment when I answered, their response. The briefest conversation creates time. Perhaps I have tried to create time through writing these pages. I begin, I fill them with words, I pile them up, and I still don’t exist because nobody is reading them. I am writing them for some unknown reader who will probably never come—I am not even sure that humanity has survived that mysterious event that governed my life. But if that person comes, they will read them and I will have a time in their mind. They will have my thoughts in them. The reader and I thus mingled will constitute something living, that will not be me, because I will be dead, and will not be that person as they were before reading, because my story, added to their mind, will then become part of their thinking. I will only be truly dead if nobody ever comes, if the centuries, then the millennia go by for so long that this planet, which I no longer believe is Earth, no longer exists. As long as the sheets of paper covered in my handwriting lie on this table, I can become a reality in someone’s mind. Then everything will be obliterated, the suns will burn out and I will disappear like the universe.

It wasn't necessary for me to stop Anthea's heart. Each death had contributed a little to killing her. There had been so much hope when we'd escaped from the prison, and then the slow dissipation, the gradual abandonment of all expectations, a defeat that had killed everything without a battle. She wondered when it had dawned on us that we were as much prisoners out in the open as we had been behind bars.

The destiny of daughters burdened with an impossible mother is tragic. When they manage to develop a healthy indifference, people say they are heartless, and when they are devoted, people say they are masochists.

They often seem to feel the need to emphasise that they wrote the book not out of vanity, but because someone asked them to, and that they had thought about it long and hard before accepting. How strange! It suggests that people were not avid to learn, and that you had to apologise for wanting to convey your knowledge.

It was only at the moment of death that they admitted their despair and rushed headlong towards the great, dark doors that I opened for them, leaving the sterile plain where their lives had gone awry without a backward glance, eager to embrace another world which perhaps didn’t exist, but they preferred nothingness to the futile succession of empty days.

I lived in a perpetual present and I was gradually forgetting my story.

I was deriving a sort of morbid pleasure from imagining myself giving in to despair,

I had in my hands the most precious of treasures, a spring from which to drink the knowledge of that world to which I would never have access.

what does it matter if I've become mute in a world where there is no one to talk to?

All of a sudden, I found myself at the top. I was in what we later called a cabin, three walls and a door, also open, the plain spreading out before me. I bounded forward and looked. It was the world.

The things I have never told anyone absolutely define me and isolate me, the things that I alone know about myself guarantee my boundaries. Here, this is me, there, is everybody else, the people who do not know the things I have never confessed.

Was I the only one? Did the planet on which I was wandering have a thousand sister planets scattered across the starry sky and, at night, while I was waiting to fall asleep, and my gaze sometimes lit on some distant globe, was the same scene taking place there?

We were caged birds longing for the freedom of the sky.

And now, racked with sobs, I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too hate, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.

It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods and who have never known men.

We had survived the prison, the plain and the loss of all hope, but the women had discovered that survival is no more than putting off the moment of death

I am everything mummy didn't want you to be. Each time you sensed her disapproval, you were afraid and you gave up, you wanted to remove whatever displeased her from yourself.

I reckon that humanity — which I wonder whether I belong to — really had a very vivid imagination.

How much of our humanity is intrinsic? How much remains, when all else is stripped away?

Don't we all go through life in the same ignorance of who we are, ready to rush at any description of ourselves that would give us the illusion of having a simple identity that can be summed up in a few words?

Animula vagula blandula, each one of us, little wandering souls seeking a share of happiness and always disappointed, as we go from dawn to dawn, our hearts torn, brave and pathetic, desperately trying to behave with the dignity required by our human condition.

Sitting on the bench, gazing towards the setting sun, she lost her mind in the cerebral convolutions, the mysterious nooks and crannies of the memory, she had gone backwards, seeking a world that made sense, losing her way among the labyrinths, slowly deteriorating, dimming, noiselessly being obliterated and then fading away so gradually that it was impossible to pinpoint the transition between the flickering little flame and the shadows.

Me too', 'Me too'. Rebellion was stirring, it was plain that this time, they would not be caught unawares, as must have happened in the past, that they wouldn't allow themselves to be overtaken by events like terrified creatures who could be led to the slaughterhouse, because they could not conceive of the slaughterhouse.

Alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.

Inside the bars, my strong, regular heart fuelled by youthful anger had restored to us our own territory; we’d established an area of freedom.

Why should she want to live? We were doing nothing, we were going nowhere, we were nobody.

I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct.

And what does it matter if I’ve become mute in a world where there is no one to talk to?

I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.

Did they only keep me in ignorance so they could pretend they weren’t entirely powerless?

Harpman shows the worst of what humans can inflict on humans, but also the best that love and togetherness can do.

She wondered when it had dawned on us that we were as much prisoners out in the open as we had been behind bars.

In my stories, there were always things happening: in my life, nothing would ever happen.

Had I become so rich that I could neglect some of my possessions?

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.

kilometres

No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine.

To understand the ties that attach us to each other, we only have a very limited number of models: so me to me? We approve or disapprove of ourselves, we love or hate ourselves, we do not have any more power over ourselves than over others, it is the same struggle that confronts us, victors or vanquished, with our external enemies and our inner contradictions.

I have no idea what you mean by madness. You know I'm not like the rest of you. I haven't experienced the things you miss so badly, or if I ever did, I don't remember anything, and that hasn't done me any harm. To me it feels as if I've always been alone, even among all of you, because I'm so different. I've never really understood you, I didn't know what you were talking about.

I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all. I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip for ever, that it would prevent me from devoting myself to anything else, and that I was allowing it to do so. I think that that is what they call being consumed with remorse.

If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn't forbidden, and they intervene, then it's not the activity that's attracting attention, it's you yourself.

Only now, I tell myself that what I’d felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were probably what the women called love. Now, I had nobody left to love.

She is a pure experiment asking: what does a person become when stripped to the core, raised in isolation? What might a woman be like under these conditions? It is testament to the strength and beauty of this novel that she remains a character too, not just a device; she is formed, sympathetic, and possessing both curiosity and courage.

I am reduced to calling a memory the sense of existing in the same place, with the same people and doing the same things (...) For a very long time, the days went by, each one just like the day before then I began to think, and everything changed. Before, nothing happened other than this repetition of identical gestures, and the time seemed to stand still, even if I was vaguely aware that I was growing and that time was passing. My memory begins with my anger.

I couldn’t forgive her for not being there, for having allowed death to snatch her, to tear her from my clumsy arms. I chastised myself for not having held on to her, for not having understood that she couldn’t go on any more. I told myself that I’d abandoned her because I was frigid, as I had been all my life, as I shall be when I die, and so I was unable to hug her warmly, and that my heart was frozen, unfeeling, and that I hadn’t realised that I was desperate.

There's no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I haven't heard its music, I haven't seen its painting, I haven't read its books, except for the handful I found in the refuge and of which I understood little. I know only the stony plain, wander-ing, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.