Le Petit Prince

Maybe you've never read it before, but I'm sure if you see this picture below you'll say: "Oh yeah, that's The Little Prince isn't it?" Well, I just happened to stumble across it on Facebook by chance and coincidence. Apparently it's already 70 years old, amazing right?  

( I DO NOT OWN THE IMAGE )

I read "El Principito" in 6th grade, but I don't remember a single thing about the story. I was never interested in any book or novel I had to read in school. You see, there was something about school novels that just repelled me away. I remember when the teachers called our names in alphabetical order and handed us 3 to 4 books: the Spanish grammar book and the novels we had to read throughout the whole year. From those bunch of books, I would only use one: the typical "Mensajes" Spanish grammar book (and just because I had to). Novels instead, never had a good future. You would always find a couple or more hidden and forgotten behind the lockers having a nice cup of coffee with the dirty old lab coats and dust itself. 

Well, now I'm pretty sure teachers chose those novels for a good and worthy reason. Unfortunately, we were too-cool-for-school to think they were actually cool. Maybe, I will come back to them in the future, who knows... In the end, the most valuable reads are the ones you want to read because you want to, not because you have to. 

So, I came back to this little novel and decided to read it in French, its mother language. And right now I'm in the fourth chapter and this quote really caught my attention. It goes like this: 

"Les grandes personnes aiment les chiffres. Quand vous leur parlez d'un nouvel ami, elles ne vous questionnent jamais sur l'essentiel. Elles ne vous disent jamais: "Quel est le son de sa voix? Quels sont les jeux qu'il préfère? Est-ce qu'il collectionne les papillons?" Elles vous demandent: "Quel âge a-t-il? Combien a-t-il de frères? Combien pèse-t-il? Combien gagne son père?" Alors seulement elles croient le connaître. Si vous dites aux grandes personnes: "J'ai vu une belle maison en briques roses, avec des géraniums aux fenêtres et des colombes sur le toit..." elles ne parviennent pas à s'imaginer cette maison. Il faut leur dire: "J'ai vu une maison de cent mille francs." Alors elles s'écrient: "Comme c'est joli!"

which translates: 

"If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.

If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $20,000." Then they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!"

What do you think?  True or not? 

Merci beaucoup Antoine de Exupéry