25 quotes
Rose-Anna was tugging at the edge of her apron with a tired, futile gesture she had never made in the past – the grandmother’s gesture.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Running anywhere, blindly, hating the echo of her footsteps in the silence of the empty streets, Florentine fled from her own fear, fled from herself.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Where could you find a light to guide the world?
The Tin Flute (1945)
Because you’d be running after your own unhappiness.
The Tin Flute (1945)
He seemed to be witnessing with his own eyes the supreme bankruptcy of humanity. Wealth had spoken the truth that night on the mountain.
The Tin Flute (1945)
To make war, you had to be filled with love, with a vehement passion, exalted, intoxicated, otherwise the whole thing was inhuman and absurd.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Her shoulders sagging, her back hunched, her eyelids tired, Rose-Anna sewed for the feast, not daring even to sing for fear of frightening off her joy.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Florentine had grown more or less immune to the charms of spring.
The Tin Flute (1945)
He [Jean] still felt surges of generosity, and gave in to them if they didn’t cramp his style. That was it. He could be kind if kindness caused him no problems.
The Tin Flute (1945)
She too was standing in the lamp’s raw light. Her cheeks looked hollow, her lips too red, too bold.
The Tin Flute (1945)
"Don’t preach," said Florentine violently. She was beginning to see the maze of lies and deceptions that lay before her.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Azarius, for his part, had not made her voyage to the depths of pain to understand that death and birth, in that place, have almost the same tragic meaning.
The Tin Flute (1945)
He saw a tree in a backyard, its branches tortured among electric wires and clotheslines, its leaves dry and shriveled before they were fully out. Low in the sky, dark clouds heralded the storm.
The Tin Flute (1945)
That was when she recognized love: this torture on seeing someone, the greater torture when he was out of sight, in short, a torture without end.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Florentine... Florentine Lacasse... half song, half squalor, half springtime, half misery,the young man murmured.
The Tin Flute (1945)
For a long time he stood at the window looking at the shining rails. They had always fascinated him. Squinting a little he saw them stretch away to infinity, carrying him off to his rediscovered youth.
The Tin Flute (1945)
Peace has been as bad as war. Peace has killed as many people as war. Peace is as bad. Peace is as bad...
The Tin Flute (1945)
Why, this man seemed barely older than himself, Emmanuel thought. He gave off a sense of almost irresistible vigor. Quite simply, he had at last become a man...
The Tin Flute (1945)
I'm (Eugene) probably goin' to be promoted, and it'll be more than twenty bucks you'll get then, you just wait. You'll have enough to live on, Ma (Rose-Anna). You won't have to scrape all your life, the rest of us'll see to that.
The Tin Flute (1945)
She understood at once, and with the courageous goodwill that sustained her, resigned herself to the fact: there was always a drawback. There had to be. Sometimes it was the lack of light, or a factory nearby, or not enough rooms. Here, it was a railroad.
The Tin Flute (1945)