“Work first to think well; such is the basis of morality.”

Blaise PASCAL (1623-1662)
mathematician, physician, inventor, philosopher

“I read, at first, for the storyline of the book; then, soon, I was reading for the way in which the story was told… the way in which the author made the story seen and heard… I understood, in reading Alphonse Daudet, that a novelist was one who knew how to make his reader see and experience… and that a writer was the one whose voice we heard and recognized. The appreciation of French, of the French language, of the style, was doubtlessly in the heart of the dreamy little fellow who thrilled in reading The Child Spy or The Last Class… It is through reading that this taste has taken shape and weight. I learned to write by reading… by imitation… the need to reproduce that which had moved me, made me laugh, or troubled me. Very young, I understood that through reading, if one day I knew how to choose the right word; make a sentence breathe without falling into exaggerated eloquence; cultivate emotion with simplicity; not seek to produce on effect but not reject it if it came naturally to my pen; to flee affectation, stiffness, obscurity and over-elaboration; be clear, true, direct and natural, then I could be (perhaps), a writer, my son.”

François BRIGNEAU (1919–2012)
writer, journalist