Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - A Guide for Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Copyright 2002 by Harcourt, Inc.
Editions Gallimard, Paris for the original works by Antoine de Saint-Exupry

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Saint-Exupry, Antoine de, 19001944.
[Selections. English 2002]
A guide for grown-ups: essential wisdom from the collected works of Antoine de Saint-Exupry/Antoine de Saint-Exupry
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Saint-Exupry, Antoine de, 19001944Translations into English.
I. Title.
PQ2637.A274A2 2002
848'.91209dc20 2001006399
ISBN 0-15-216711-0

e ISBN 978-0-547-54012-2
v3.0216

Compilation assistance by Jennifer Ward
Hand lettering by John Burns

On ne voit bien quavec le cur. Lessentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.

In 1942, in Northport, Long Island, Antoine de Saint-Exupry wrote this insight, forming the heart of his classic tale The Little Prince. For six decades, readers have recited this and other quotations from his collected works in more than 130 languages. Yet what was essential for Saint-Exupry? He was a man of numerous talents and passions: a pioneering pilot who was among the first to fly at night in the effort to establish international mail routes; a patriot who left occupied France in an attempt to gain American aid; an award-winning and revered author.

Whether on land or in flight, Saint-Exupry ceaselessly considered the human condition. What interested and concerned the author most became the recurring themes in his books: the source of happiness, the nature of friendship, the strength of love, the commitment to duty. Both Saint-Exuprys personal and professional lives color his writing. His plane crash in the Sahara in 1935even the fennec foxes he befriended there in 1927adds to the story line of The Little Prince. The breathtaking beauty he witnessed from miles above the Andes graces passages from Wind, Sand and Stars. His struggle to come to terms with the myriad aspects of human nature revealed during World War II appears in the unfinished manuscript he kept by his side during the last years of his life, The Wisdom of the Sands.

Quotations from all of Saint-Exuprys books are included herethose mentioned above as well as Night Flight, Southern Mail, Flight to Arras, and Wartime Writings 19391944, a collection of his letters to family, friends, and comrades. These are astute observations and emotional recollections from the authors extraordinary life. His thoughts on endurance, beauty, logic, creativity, frustration, and selflessness prompt us to reflect upon facets of our relationships and the world we share. (For more information about the books mentioned here, see the annotated bibliography on page 85.)

In 1943, following the publication of The Little Prince, Saint-Exupry reenlisted in the French Air Corps. He disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1944, while on a reconnaissance mission. His bodylike that of his beloved little princewas never found, but the Winged Poets words endure for grown-ups of all ages to read with their eyes and to feel with their hearts, in the pursuit of understanding what is essential.

A NNA M ARLIS B URGARD

I F SOMEONE loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, thats enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars.

The Little Prince

In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.

The Wisdom of the Sands

All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its cominga joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.

Wind, Sand and Stars

I need to put up with two or three caterpillars if I want to get to know the butterflies.

The Little Prince

True freedom lies only in the creative process. The fisherman is free when he fishes according to his instinct. The sculptor is free when carving a face.

Wartime Writings 19391944

I was wrong to grow older. Pity. I was so happy as a child.

Flight to Arras

Happiness! It is useless to seek it elsewhere than in this warmth of human relations.... Only a comrade can grasp us by the hand and haul us free.

Wind, Sand and Stars

If I summon up those memories that have left with me an enduring savor, if I draw up the balance sheet of the hours in my life that have truly counted, surely I find only those that no wealth could have procured me.

Wind, Sand and Stars

What he had yearned to embrace was not the flesh but a downy spirit, a spark, the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.

Wind, Sand and Stars

O LD FRIENDS cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.

Wind, Sand and Stars

People havent time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends.

The Little Prince

The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried.

Southern Mail

He who is different from me does not impoverish mehe enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselvesin Man.... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.

Flight to Arras

When we exchange manly handshakes, compete in races, join together to save one of us who is in trouble, cry aloud for help in the hour of dangeronly then do we learn that we are not alone on earth.

Wind, Sand and Stars

Friendship is born from an identity of spiritual goalsfrom common navigation toward a star.

Wartime Writings 19391944

The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart.

The Wisdom of the Sands

Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.

Flight to Arras

I can be bound to no men except those to whom I give. I understand no men except those to whom I am bound.

Flight to Arras

T HE ARMS OF LOVE encompass you with your present, your past, your future, the arms of love gather you together.