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I used to walk by the river
An old book under my arm
The river is the same as pain
It elapses mindlessly
And when will the week be over

— Guillaume Apollinaire Alcools (1912)

Je passais au bord de la Seine
Un livre ancien sous le bras
Le fleuve est pareil à ma peine
Il s'écoule et ne tarit pas
Quand donc finira la semaine

Original text (French)

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Books

More quotes by Guillaume Apollinaire

And for your eyes my life takes poison slowly.

Alcools (1912)

We mean to explore kindness and its enormous silences.

Calligrammes (1918)

And the single string of the marine trumpets.

Alcools (1912)

O mouths humanity seeks a new language
Beyond the reach of grammarians

Calligrammes (1918)

Geometry is to the plastic arts what grammar is to the art of the writer.

Les peintres cubistes (1913)

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Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Guillaume Apollinaire (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.