Jean Anouilh (1910–87,) fully Jean-Marie-Lucien-Pierre Anouilh, was a French dramatist. One of the strongest personalities of the French theatre, he wrote many plays but is best known for his reworking of the Greek myth of Antigone in Antigone (1944.)
Born of French and Basque parentage in Bordeaux, Anouilh studied law in Paris and began his career as a copywriter and as a gagman in films. His first play, L’Hermine (1931; The Ermine, 1955,) was not successful, but his steady output soon earned him recognition.
Anouilh was influenced by neoclassical fashion inspired by novelist Jean Giraudoux. Still, his very personal approach to the re-interpretation of Greek myths was less poetic and more in tune with the contemporary taste for artifice and stylization.
Among Anouilh’s many successful plays are Antigone (1946,) Médée (1946; Medea, 1956,) L’Alouette (1953; The Lark, 1955; a spiritual adventure about Joan of Arc,) Becket (1959,) Cher Antoine; ou, L’Amour raté (1969; Dear Antoine; or, The Love That Failed, 1971,) L’Arrestation (1974; The Arrest, 1974) and La Culotte (1978, ‘The Breeches.’)
Anouilh also wrote several successful film scenarios and translated from English some works of other playwrights.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jean Anouilh
With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it’s not just a trick of the devil.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: God
An ugly sight, a man who is afraid.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Fear
Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books—but it is terrible when one has to live it.
—Jean Anouilh
One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Sympathy
Each of us has a day … when he has to accept, finally, the fact that he is a man.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Acceptance, Realization, Awareness
Men create real miracles when they use their God-given courage and intelligence
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Intelligence
Poor little men, poor little cocks! As soon as they’re old enough, they swell their plumage to be conquerors. If they only knew that it’s enough to be just a little bit wounded and sad in order to obtain everything without fighting for it.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Men
True miracles are created by men when they use the courage and intelligence that God gave them.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Courage
Oh, love is real enough; you will find it someday, but it has one archenemy—and that is life.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Love
Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Adversity
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Gift, Gifts, Romance, Love
Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Wealth, Riches
The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Morals, Morality
God! Is there anything uglier than a frightened man.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Fear
Life is a child playing around your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden.
—Jean Anouilh
There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Love
What you get free costs too much.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Value
Things are beautiful if you love them.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Beauty
Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy—common clay, if you like—eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can’t imagine dead. And then there are the others—the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Heroes, Heroism, Heroes/Heroism
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Laws
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It’s easy to say no, even if it means dying.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Dedication, Commitment, Courage, Attachment
We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Worry, Anxiety, Fear
Love is the gift of oneself.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Kindness
Our entire life – consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Acceptance
Nothing is irreparable in politics.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Politics, Politicians
Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration?—a hoax fabricated by poets for their self-importance.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Talent
Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Beauty
It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout—not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you’ve never said before. What perhaps you don’t even know till now.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Tragedy
A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Actors
Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.
—Jean Anouilh
Topics: Weapon, Propaganda
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