"
"What planet is this on which I have come down?" asked the little prince.
"This is the Earth; this is Africa," the snake answered.
"Ah! Then there are no people on the Earth?"
"This is the desert. There are no people in the desert. The Earth is large," said the snake.
The little prince sat down on a stone, and raised his eyes toward the sky.
"I wonder," he said, "whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again . . . Look at my planet. It is right there above us. But how far away it is!"
It is beautiful," the snake said. "What has brought you here?"
"I have been having some trouble with a flower," said the little prince.
"Ah!" said the snake.
And they were both silent.
"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again. "It is a little lonely in the desert . . ."
"It is also lonely among men," the snake said.
The little prince gazed at him for a long time. "
Le Petit Prince in original french version. It's a book I read many times, in all the languages I am fairly familiar with, it seems to be different every time. And the author was right, it is an universal book, you can read it when you are nine and 19 and 99. It is one of those great books; not great because they won the Nobel prize or have sold in a million copies, but because they won our
heart. And just because of that, all should read, if only once in lifetime...
Ivanhoe is timeless, for the very life and romance in it;
The Picture of Dorian Gray is timeless, because it teaches us so much of the world and our soul;
The Little Prince is timeless beacuse he teaches us, for once, to listen to our heart. We all talk about it, but never seem to listen, though it is the fairest thing in us.
I could endlessly quote this book, there are so many wonderful truths in it, but this time, I chose one of the most memorable for me, memorable because it is so true... Even in a crowd of people you can be and feel so alone, you think your heart might break. That's how I feel now. I feel like a
little princess. And I can do nothing about it. And I just wish I could gaze as the Little Prince in wonder at the snake when she uttered those words, in wonder because he did not know what that means, and how on earth it could be possible. It is humanly possible...
The Little Prince loved a rose. He thought her fairest of them all and unique. But finding out that
she was not, his little heart broke.
"
I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees--and one of them perhaps extinct forever . . . That doesn't make me a very great prince . . ."
Not forever did his heart remain broken, thankfuly. For meeting the fox, he learnt that because, and just becase he loved that rose, it was unique, it was his own, it knew his heart. And he trusted
she would never break it. And that's worth something.
"
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." "
"
What moves me so deeply, about this little prince who is sleeping here, is his loyalty to a flower--the image of a rose that shines through his whole being like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep . . ." said Exupéry. He marvelled the prince and loved him, for all his innocence and all his determination at the end when he.... (Well, I'm not revealing everything, read it)
"
"You are a funny animal," he said at last. "You are no thicker than a finger . . ."
"But I am more powerful than the finger of a king," said the snake.
The little prince smiled.
"You are not very powerful. You haven't even any feet. You cannot even travel . . ."
"I can carry you farther than any ship could take you," said the snake.
He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet.
"Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came," the snake spoke again. "But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star . . ." "
There is strength in unknown things... let's hope they are friends. Let's hope...
quotet text: Antoine de Saint Exupéry,
Le Petit Prince
