Jules Renard (1864–1910) was a French writer of prose fiction and plays and a diarist. He is best known for Poil de carotte (1894,) a sympathetic account of his unhappy childhood.
Born in Châlons-sur-Mayenne in northwestern France, Renard grew up in the countryside of central France. After getting educated at Nevers and in Paris, he became a man of letters, frequenting literary, artistic, and theatrical circles in Paris and contributing to contemporary journals. After his marriage in 1888, he devoted himself to writing.
Drawing heavily on his observation of rural life in the provinces, Renard’s descriptive sketches of animal life in Les Histoires Naturelles (1896; Nature Stories) are models of their kind. They were brilliantly illustrated by the painters Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard, and set to music by composer Maurice Ravel.
Although Renard spent most of his life in Paris, he never lost touch with his native countryside; and in Les Philippe (1907,) Nos frères farouches (1908,) and Ragotte (1908,) he depicted rural life with amused penetration and cruel realism.
Renard is best known for Poil de carotte (1894; Carrot Top or Carrots, 1946,) a bitterly ironical account of his childhood, in which grim humor conceals acute sensibility. All his life, although happily married with two children, Renard was haunted by and tried to hide the misery he had suffered as a child from lack of affection.
Renard’s prose, stripped of superfluous words, influenced later French writers. He also wrote plays that reveal human self-deception and pettiness—these include Le Plaisir de rompre (1897,) Le Pain de ménage (1898,) and La Bigote (1909.)
Renard was a founder member of the Mercure de France (1890) and was elected to the Académie Goncourt (1907.) His Journal (17 vols., 1925–27; translated into English in 1964) is a brilliant account of the Parisian fin-de-siècle literary life and provides a vivid picture of the belle époque.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jules Renard
Words are the small change of thought.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Words
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Writing, Books, Literature
I finally know what distinguishes man from the other beasts: financial worries.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Money, Worry
The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Results
There are moments when everything goes well, but don’t be frightened.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Fear
On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Heaven
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Atheism
Truth makes many appeals, not the least of which is its power to shock.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Truth
The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Cats
We spend our lives talking about this mystery. Our life.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Existence
Failure is not the only punishment for laziness;
there is also the success of others.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Failure
To succeed you must add water to your wine, until there is no more wine.
—Jules Renard
Socialism must come down from the brain and reach the heart.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Communism
Don’t tell a woman she’s pretty; tell her there’s no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Praise
Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Writing
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Boredom
If I were to begin life again,
I should want it as it was.
I would only open my eyes a little more.
—Jules Renard
Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent o people who have none.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Occupation
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Writing
There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Anger
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Poetry, Poets
It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.
—Jules Renard
There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Solitude
The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
—Jules Renard
I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Boredom
If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Solitude, Loneliness
Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Optimism
Love is like an hour-glass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Kindness
Fame is a constant effort
—Jules Renard
Topics: Fame
A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Suffering, Ideas
Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.
—Jules Renard
Topics: Words
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Jean Giono French Novelist
Guy de Maupassant French Short-story Writer
Gustave Flaubert French Novelist
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
Victor Hugo French Novelist
Andre Gide French Novelist
Anatole France French Novelist
Marcel Proust French Novelist
Remy de Gourmont French Poet
Michel Houellebecq French Author