“A child who did not ever know how to play will become an adult who does not know how to think.”

Jean CHÂTEAU (1908-1990)
Psychologist, university professor

“They say that in the stables at Christmas, the ox and the ass chat with each other. I believe it. Why not? The night is crawling with movement: the stars are like a resting place and they are roses. The ox and the ass keep this secret all during the year. No one would ever guess. But I know that they hide a great mystery beneath their humble façade. Their eyes and mine know how to speak quite well to each other. They are the friends of the great prairies where the slender indigo, draped in sky blue, trembles nearby the daisies for whom every day is Sunday, as they are always clothed in white dresses. They are the friends of the crickets whose fat heads sing a kind of delicious polyphonic Mass; the buttercups are the Mass bells, and the clover stems are the Mass candles. The ox and the ass say nothing about all that because they have a great simplicity and they know that all truths are not meant to be put into words. In fact, they are better left unsaid. However, in the summertime when the stinging bees fly around like little sparks of the sun, I feel sorry for the little donkey and I wish they would put a soft pair of pants on him to protect him from the heat of the day; and I wish that the ox who speaks with him of God, could have a little bouquet of fresh ferns placed between his horns to preserve his poor little head from the horrible heat which could give him a fever.”

Francis JAMMES (1868-1938)
Writer