GAINSBOURG, Serge (1928-1991)

GAINSBOURG, Serge (1928-1991)

Proofs with autograph corrections, signed « SG »
N.p.n.d. [Paris, 1986], 8 p. in-4°
Le Floch letterhead
Foliation: 287-294

Gainsbourg meticulously revises a long list of his aphorisms, thoughts, and reflections, in preparation for a book dedicated to him

A remarkable panorama of Gainsbourgian thought

Of this impressive list of 59 aphorisms and quotations by the singer-songwriter, 28 are corrected or crossed out in his own hand. Among the latter, several appear to have remained unpublished.

Here we present a non-exhaustive selection. Some are witty, others provocative, and many have entered posterity:

“Lucien Ginzburg… now it’s okay.
I wanted to call myself Julien, because of Julien Sorel. Then I came across Lucien Leuwen, another of Stendhal’s heroes. That reconciled me with my first name, but in the end I chose Serge. Out of nostalgia for a Russia I never knew.”

“Snobbery is like a bubble of champagne, hesitating between a burp and a fart.”

“Man created gods. The reverse has yet to be proven.”

“Jew: it’s not a religion.
No religion makes a nose grow like this.”

“Humor is speaking seriously about things that aren’t.”

“Who sank the Titanic? Iceberg, another Jew.”

“The one walking the dog is the one at the end of the leash.”

“Hush! Love is a crystal that breaks in silence.”

“My Rolls… is my Steinway.”

“Friendship is unfuckable, and that’s where I get fucked.”

“I smoke, I see, and I fuck. An equilateral triangle, not bad.”

“Women, deep down — and deep in the ass — love misogynists.”

“Socialism… I’d like all the poor to have a Rolls; as for me, I sold mine.”

“I’m fifty-eight. It’s normal to be an orphan at fifty-eight, but it’s utterly unacceptable.”

“I quit smoking. Every five minutes.”

“Caresses and punches in the face are the thick and thin strokes of love.”

“I don’t break up, because it’s women I break.”

“Beauty is women’s only revenge.”

“I only want to hear silence, dammit. Silence. Shut the hell up.”

“Stupidity is the relaxation of intelligence.”

“Let them analyze my work: if you have to be broke to please intellectuals, fuck the intellectuals.”

“People watch me at home, unkempt, in slippers, stuffing themselves and drinking in the kitchen. I don’t see why I should wear a tuxedo.”

“My approach with my song Aux armes et cætera was to give La Marseillaise, through the vehicle of a revolutionary music, reggae, a new revolutionary pulse — which is what it was originally.”

“I’m also at Gallimard, between Genet and Gide. Of the three of us, there’s only one who loved women. Me.”

“Jane Birkin, in three words: Loss. Irre. Parable.”

These proofs were corrected by Gainsbourg in preparation for his anthology Mon propre rôle, published by Denoël in 1987.