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Jean-Claude Izzo Quotes

Pleasure involves respect, and respect starts with words.

Pleasure involves respect, and respect starts with words.

Jean-Claude Izzo
Pleasure
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Total Chaos”, p.55, Penguin

Marseilles isn't a city for tourists. There's nothing to see. Its beauty can't be photographed. It can only be shared. It's a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you're in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight.

Jean-Claude Izzo
Hero, Fighting, Cities
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Total Chaos”, p.28, Penguin

I'd spent half of my life crying, the other half refusing to cry

Jean-Claude Izzo
Half, Other Half, Cry
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Chourmo”, p.100, Penguin

Sometimes, all it takes is one gesture, one word, to change the course of someone's life. Even if you know it won't last forever.

Jean-Claude Izzo
Forever, Gestures, Lasts
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Total Chaos”, p.76, Penguin

I was the last, the sole survivor. The most honorable thing a survivor could do was survive. If you stayed on your feet, stayed alive, you were the winner.

Jean-Claude Izzo
Feet, Survivor, Alive
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Total Chaos”, p.53, Penguin

The sensuality of desperate lives. Only poets talk like that. But poetry has never had an answer for anything. All it does it bear witness. To despair. And desperate lives.

Jean-Claude Izzo
Despair, Doe, Answers
Jean-Claude Izzo (2016). “Total Chaos”, p.117, Penguin

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