the little prince {Le Petit Prince}

I read <the little prince> when I was in high school because it is so famous.  I had heard it described a must-read book. Inspiring and beautiful, it was written in 1943 by French aviator Saint-Exupéry. Of course, their comments attracted me, so I want to know how fascinating and magic the book is. 

Fortunately, the little prince didn't disappoint me.  Now it's one of my favorite books.  I like him as soon as he appeared while he was asking the pilot to draw a sheep for him.  The little prince is so pure,responsible, and lovely.  I also like the earnest fox. "tame"!  how beautiful it is!

In the end,  he was bit by a snake in order to go home.  The pilot has never seen him again ever since.

I believe the little prince has gone home.  But my friend insisted that he died, which make me sad.  However, I hope the little prince has gone home to take care of his rose!

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”

"If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself: 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened...And you think that is not important!"

The pictures

"I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again."

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?". They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him. 


If you tell grown-ups, "I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof...," they won't be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, "I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs." Then they exclaim, "What a pretty house!"

"All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it). "

A Sheep

"If you please -- draw me a sheep!"
"What!"
"Draw me a sheep!"

Asteroid B-612

Sunsets

"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-three times!"
And a little later you added:
"You know -- one loves the sunset, when one is so sad..."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"
But the little prince made no reply.

The rose

"I have been silly," she said to him, at last. "I ask your forgiveness. Try to be happy..."

"Of course I love you," the flower said to him. "It is my fault that you have not known it all the while. That is of no importance. But you -- you have been just as foolish as I. Try to be happy... let the glass globe be. I don't want it any more."

"Don't linger like this. You have decided to go away. Now go!"
For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower...

The fox

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"What does that mean -- 'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a very long time.

“Please! Tame me!” he said.

“I want to very much,” the little prince replied. “But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”

“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me…”

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

"It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers..."

“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is invisible is essential to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.  You are responsible for your rose…”
“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

 

the little prince from different people:

 

Do you see a hat or an Elephant in a Boa Constrictor?