There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.

About Jean Anouilh

Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist and screenwriter whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles’ classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Petain’s Vichy government.

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More quotes from Jean Anouilh

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Men create real miracles when they use their God-given courage and intelligence.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Our entire life – consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books – but it is terrible when one has to live it.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness to be truly base.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Life is very nice, but it lacks form. It’s the aim of art to give it some.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

What fun it would be to be poor, as long as one was excessively poor! Anything in excess is most exhilarating.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

God is on everyone’s side… and in the last analysis, he is on the side with plenty of money and large armies.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Every man thinks god is on his side.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it’s not just a trick of the devil.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Things are beautiful if you love them.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

I like reality. It tastes like bread.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Life has a way of setting things in order and leaving them be. Very tidy, is life.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Talent is like a faucet, while it is open, one must write.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and, ask anyone, the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Oh, love is real enough; you will find it someday, but it has one archenemy – and that is life.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past… And when you are seventy, nearly all of you.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

All evil comes from the old.They grow fat on ideas and young men die of them.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

What you get free costs too much.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

An ugly sight, a man who is afraid.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

Have you noticed that life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in newspapers?

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)

A genius knows how to make himself easily understood without being obvious about it.

Jean Anouilh

French playwright (1910-1987)