Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 100
I feel very close to French culture and to the French humanism, which occasionally one finds, even in the highest places. And therefore, all of my books have been written in French.
Elie WieselWriting in French is one of my ambitions. I'd like to be able to dream one day in French. Italian and French are the two languages that I'd like to know.
Benedict CumberbatchMy film is in French. It's not something folkloric. It's who we are. There's this tension about immigrants coming in. Will they learn French? Will they adapt? In this film, I'm on the reverse side because Monsieur Lazhar comes from a society where French is also the second language.
Philippe FalardeauNow Iโm really glad that I speak French, because, letโs face it, girls dig it when a guy speaks French. They call it the language of love, and that ainโt no coincidence. Plus, I love my French fans! Trรจs jolie!
Justin BieberWe have talked about revoking French citizenship for some individuals. Therefore, I have decided to apply for citizenship, which in a way points out the contradictions of this bill that states the forfeiture of French citizenship exclusively to individuals holding dual nationalities. Through this application, I put myself in the midst of the French political debate and discredit everything that might be said against me about this matter.
Tariq RamadanThe songs of Bizet are by a French peer of Rossini. When Rossini stopped composing, he was living in Paris. He also wrote some beautiful songs in French.
Cecilia BartoliAnd if you remember the other part of the context is we were then all deceived about the French position and told the French had said they'd veto any second resolution - which wasn't true, we now know.
Clare ShortI love French style from the Thirties and Forties. French movie stars like Jean Gabin and Yves Montand had so much natural, effortless style.
Vincent CasselI don't know French at all. I took some lessons when I was younger but all I know are the numbers. I've been told basically everyone in Monaco speaks English because of it being a huge vacation spot so I'm excited about that. I might not need to learn French after all.
Freddy AduThe Iranian government prevented journalists from marching in solidarity with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre yet it organized flag-burning protests against the French embassy, that hasn't ingratiated them to a French nuclear negotiating team that is deeply cynical about the nature of the Iranian regime.
Karim SadjadpourThere was [really] little difference between someone acting throwing french fries in your face and someone throwing french fries in your face.
Russell BrandI was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.
Paul AusterHo joined the French socialist party, the first Vietnamese to be a member of a French political party.
Wilfred BurchettIn the past the French came to Germany less with the desire to understand it than with a zealous desire to interpret, to analyze it dispassionately something for which their training at the Ecole Normale Superieure or the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and the French language superbly equipped them to do.
Walter AbishAntiwhite racism is developing in sections of our cities where individuals - some of whom have French nationality - contemptuously designate French people as gaulois on the pretext they don't share the same religion, color or origins.
Jean-Francois CopeI started to write because of my dream to become a filmmaker. I got to know about a film school in Paris and it was my goal to get there. To do that I knew I had to learn French. In order to practice I started to write journals in French. The effort I made to master what I regarded a bad thing - a language owned by the rich Moroccans - brought me the ability to write.
Abdellah TaiaThe French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny.
Matt GroeningFood can be utilized for economic reasons, like the grain embargo of Carter 40 years ago. You have a political decision, you are going to move the flow of food in a part of the world and not another part of the world. And certainly now, with the way the country is polarized and all that, you wouldn't want to have a French menu, with a French thing - you'd be crucified! Or anything like that. You have to be a real American and apple pie and this and that.
Jacques PepinBecause I was born in Casablanca and my parents were from the south of Spain, I do not have a big central root in France. I feel French but in a few ways, not at all French.
Jean RenoThat amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.
Cornelia Otis SkinnerMy sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread - works all the time. I think I've been eating pasta for 26 years.
Tom BradySteven Soderbergh really likes Irrรฉversible, that's about all I can tell you. About the making, well, it was a very particular situation, because those people all know each other, and they're all big stars. I felt like the little French guy, really. And I was very flattered to be called on that, of course, but I felt like if I didn't find something to be a little original, different, particular in the movie, I would just disappear.
Vincent CasselIf you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema.
Philippe FalardeauI know never to take a wine for granted. Drawing a cork is like attendance at a concert or at a play that one knows well, when there is all the uncertainty of no two performances ever being quite the same. That is why the French say, 'There are no good wines, only good bottles.'
Gerald AsherWe the undersigned, intend to establish an instruction and training institution which differs from the common elementary schools principally in that it will embrace, outside of (in addition to) the general and elementary curriculum, all branches of the classical high school, which are necessary for a true Christian and scientific education, such as: Religion, the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French and English languages; History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, natural history, Introduction to Philosophy, Music, and Drawing.
C. F. W. WaltherThe welfare state is institutionalized crime - 'organized plunder,' as the French economist Frederic Bastiat called it. It systematizes what is intrinsically wrong: forcing some people to support others. The Democrats favor the indefinite expansion of the welfare state, perpetually increasing the ratio of force to freedom in society.
Joseph SobranThe whole history between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is complicated. We share the island of Hispaniola, and Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic for twenty-two years after 1804 for fear that the French and Spanish would come back and reinstitute slavery. So we have this unique situation of being two independent nations on the same island, but with each community having its own grievance.
Edwidge Danticat18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.
Bill BrysonI wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.
Thomas KellerThe new French theme park based on Napoleon is named Napoleon's Bivouac, and will honor Napoleon with rides, battle reenactments, and the brutal March on Moscow ride. That's a walk-in freezer you stand in for 18 months while you try to eat a dead horse.
Peter SagalThe American people are not naifs who yearn for isolationism, but they are starting to ask some hard questions about the way we have been doing business for 50 years, and it may well be time to grant the French, Canadians, Germans, Turks, South Koreans, and a host of others their wishes for independence from us: polite friendship - but no alliances, no bases, no money, no trade concessions, and no more begging for the privilege of protecting them.
Victor Davis HansonIt has not been the style of Canadian politicians to write of their experiences, although it is the common practice for British, French, and American Politicians upon their retirement. But I have been criticized before and I expect to be again.
Judy LaMarshI've always wondered why there isn't a great French novel about the German occupation. The nouveau roman authors weren't interested in telling that sort of thing.
Manuel PuigIn language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?
Marlene DietrichThere is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. (Preface to the French edition).
Karl MarxThe nation-state became powerful in the wake of the French Revolution, whereas the nation-state has become powerless in light of globalization.
Grace Lee BoggsI donโt like water. I drink Diet Coke. Nor do I smoke, or drink alcohol or even sip a cafรฉ. I donโt look after myself. I donโt do yoga, Pilates, those things. I hate physical effort, I donโt run anywhere, but I am super-energetic. Make-up? I just black my eyes and thatโs it. My hair? I get it cut on set (fashion shoots), I never go to a hairdresser. Iโm not sure Iโm French. You think Iโm not smart enough?
Emmanuelle AltItโs the opening of Manderlay in Cannes, and Iโm sitting next to this guy whoโs writing for a tiny fictitious French paper called โOn the Sunny Side,โ and heโs writing a review on the film, and heโs obviously bored. Then he tells me about all the cars he owns, and how rich he is, and all these things... So, at a certain point, he says, "So what do you do?" Then I take out this very strange hammer we have in the Danish building business, and I say, "I kill." And then I kill him. It is as stupid as it sounds.
Lars von TrierI feel pretty stupid that I don't know any foreign languages. I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese.
Bill GatesThe French are true romantics. They feel the only difference between a man of forty and one of seventy is thirty years of experience.
Maurice ChevalierAmericans are just beginning to regard food the way the French always have. Dinner is not what you do in the evening before something else. Dinner is the evening.
Art BuchwaldI made a French film called "Merry Christmas" which is a very European film. It's a World War I piece.
Diane Kruger[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time.
Edna St. Vincent Millay