Marcel Pagnol

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”

“One has to look out for engineers—they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”

“An idealist is a man who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”

“All the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single day.”

“Honor is like a match, you can only use it once.”

“A man has to have a little madness, or he never dares cut the rope and be free.”

“We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory.”

“Childhood is a world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing.”

“Morality consists in suspecting other people's morals.”

“The first duty of a writer is to be readable.”

“There are people who do not know how to waste their time alone, and they are the scourge of busy people.”

“It's a good thing to be old, because it's the only way to live long.”

“If you want to hang yourself, you should choose a sturdy branch.”

“A secret is not something you tell everybody. It's something you tell one person at a time.”

“The man who is right is the man who is most often right.”

“Everybody in the world is a critic.”

“The whole world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

“When one has been a wolf, one can't become a shepherd.”