[...] Sometimes talk, which for a barman means I listen while he throws out sentences that don't always know where they're going, about his life, his career, his children. [...]

[...] You really are a useful thing in other people's lives when you're a barman. The customers don't realize it outright, of course, but when all's said and done, in good times and bad, there's always a bar in their lives, and a barman, a bit wizened but very professional, to serve them whatever they want, and then when they're done they snap out of their little reverie, unless they've been thinking of nothing at all, and when it comes time to go the barman has told them thank you, good-bye, and have a good day. [...]

After all these years as a barman, everyone I know's in my own line of work. My friend Roger, my friend Pierrot, and then the others. They come and go, for the most part. Let the world turn around us, beyond our spotless bars, in the end every day will be carefully wiped away to make room for the next. [...]

[...] I'd run around with a lot of women when I was younger, before and after my divorce, and I'd worked in Paris bars a week at a time. I'd even done a season at a vacation club in Agadir because of a love affair that hadn't worked out, a woman from Bois-Colombes. I wanted to marry her. [...]