Top 11 Quotes by Delphine de Vigan

I used to think things were the way they are for a reason, that there was some hidden meaning. I used to think that this meaning governed the way the world was. But it's an illusion to think that there are good and bad

I used to think things were the way they are for a reason, that there was some hidden meaning. I used to think that this meaning governed the way the world was. But it's an illusion to think that there are good and bad reasons. Grammar is a lie to make us think that what we say is connected by a logic that you'll find if you study it, a lie that gone on for centuries. Because I now know that life just lurches between stability and instability and doesn't obey any law.

Delphine de Vigan

Lying, Thinking, Law

Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.143, A&C Black

My Dad says that we're the meanest to the ones we love because we know they'll still love us.

Delphine de Vigan

Dad, My Dad, Stills

Before I met No I thought that violence meant shouting and hitting and war and blood. Now I know that there can also be violence in silence and that it’s sometimes invisible to the naked eye. There’s violence in the time that conceals wounds, the relentless succession of days, the impossibility of turning back the clock. Violence is what escapes us. It’s silent and hidden. Violence is what remains inexplicable, what stays forever opaque.

Delphine de Vigan

War, Eye, Blood

Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.156, A&C Black

People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links things and brings opposites together. Grammar is a wonderful way of organising the world how you'd like it to be.

Delphine de Vigan

Thinking, Opposites, People

But sometimes the night reveals the only truth that time passes and things will never be seen the same again.

Delphine de Vigan

Night, Sometimes, Time Passes

You can learn to find unknowns in equations, draw equidistant lines and demonstrate theorems, but in real life there's nothing to position, calculate, or guess.

Delphine de Vigan

Real, Lines, Draws

Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.67, A&C Black

And when he catches me looking at him, he gives me this incredibly sweet, calm smile, and I think that we've got our lives ahead of us, our whole lives.

Delphine de Vigan

Sweet, Thinking, Giving

Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.96, A&C Black

Some secrets are like fossils and the stone has become too heavy to turn over.

Delphine de Vigan

Secret, Stones, Fossils

I’m not too keen on talking. I always have the feeling that the words are getting away from me, escaping and scattering. It’s not to do with vocabulary or meanings, because I know quite a lot of words, but when I come out with them they get confused and scattered. That’s why I avoid stories and speeches and just stick to answering the questions I’m asked. All the extra words, the overflow, I keep to myself, the words that I silently multiply to get close to the truth.

Delphine de Vigan

Confused, Vocabulary, Escaping

Delphine de Vigan (2010). “No and Me”, p.18, A&C Black

All my life I've felt on the outside wherever I am - out of the picture, the conversation, at a distance, as though I were the only one able to hear the sounds or words that other's can't, and deaf to the words that they hear. As if I'm outside the frame, on the other side of a huge, invisible window.

Delphine de Vigan

Distance, Sound, Able