Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 103
I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.
Tahar Ben JellounI don't feel French at all. That was never really a concern, and it's limiting to think that way. I think Paris is more of a playground for international designers, so I don't really feel French. And I don't really want to feel French.
Nicolas GhesquiereThe 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 BartoliThe Second World War had a precipitating effect in that it discredited the empires, as well as bankrupting them. Not only could you no longer, if you were a colonial subject of France in Africa, look to France as a model of power and influence and civility after what had happened in the war. Nor could the French any longer afford to run their empire. And nor could the British, although they were not discredited in the way that the French were.
Tony JudtI write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.
Twyla TharpStrange bent over these things, with a concentration to rival Minervois's own, questioning, criticizing and proposing. Strange and the two engravers spoke French to each other. To Strange's surprize Childermass understood perfectly and even addressed one or twoquestions to Minervois in his own language. Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.
Susanna ClarkeThat certain snobbery of certainly the Parisian - combined with a complete denial of your historical legacy, is just awful. That's a funny thing about France. Saul Bellow wrote somewhere that he saw right through the French. He lived there. He wrote The Adventures of Augie March in Paris, and there's no one better than him to say what's unbearable about the French.
Martin AmisI grew up in France, my first language was French, and I tend to gravitate towards French cooking.
Robert StackThe real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.
Mireille GuilianoIt wasn't a new idea. During the war against the French we had this kind of broadcast for the French soldiers.
Hanoi HannahSome French politicians have said that the European Union should drop sanctions against Russia so everybody can join together in this fight against the Islamic State. But we're hearing from French officials that [Francois] Hollande hasn't changed his stance. He's - he's still saying that sanctions shouldn't be lifted until the Minsk agreement has been implemented.
Corey FlintoffI think that what people abroad want from French film, inside French film becomes our worst fear, "Oh, another film about love!"
Louis GarrelMy mother likes what I cook, but doesn't think it's French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I'm the quintessential French chef.
Jacques PepinWhat is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.
Branford MarsalisThey [ French] still have an open border in Europe. And they have a Europe which doesn't have an integrated intelligence system like we do in the United States.
Michael LeiterAfter 10 years of French torture - psychological torture - it's great to do an American movie.
Emmanuelle BeartFrench girls still have the Jane Birkin culture. You can go just like that, without makeup, without managing your hair.
Emmanuelle AltAn unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.
Edith WhartonMy mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.
Andrea Fay FriedmanNothing is as depressing as absolute logic. Look at the maze of French politics perpetrated by a logical people.
Rae FoleyIf French is no longer the language of a power, it can be the language of a counter power.
Lionel JospinIn the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter.
Neville ChamberlainI have had some problems because the French don't like people to have success, they don't like the number one.
Alain ProstObviously, I would have been happier if Canada had not been conquered in the past by the English, if this part of North America had remained French, but you can't rewrite history.
Jean ChretienTheatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.
Cyril CusackThe French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.
Alexis de TocquevilleI wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.
Thomas KellerWhy would we expect the French to fight to liberate the Iraqis when they wouldn't fight to liberate themselves?
Rush LimbaughIn Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.
Julian BarnesBoys, welcome to the wonderful world of talking to women about their feelings. As a handy primer, here are a few things you should know: 1) Women have feelings. 2) You will spend the next seventy years or so trying to guess what they're feeling and why. 3) You will be wrong most of the time. 4) I like French Fries.
Brandon SandersonThe German-French friendship is indispensable for Europe. And I will never let myself be carried away to making statements that would change it.
Francois HollandeThe study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person.
George A. SheehanI'm a vegan, but you can be really unhealthy as a vegan, too. Vegan just means that you don't use animal products, so you don't wear leather, you don't wear wool, and you don't eat animal products. But you can eat french fries and stuff like that all day long.
Emily DeschanelThe French will always do exactly the opposite on what the United States wants regardless of what happens, so we're never going to have a consistent policy.
Howard DeanHe put his hand on his forehead and scoured the French department of his memory for a word. He knew it was in there. He'd put it in almost fifty years before and hadn't had cause to remove it. But for the life of him he couldn't find it.
Colin CotterillOne difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.
William SafireSo we know she's safe and taken care of?" Daniel asked, and she nodded. "Good. Then why don't we do something that you want to do?" "Like what?" "I don't know. What do you like to do?" "Um...." Her stomach rumbled, since crying always made her hungry. "I like eating breakfast." "That's so weird." Daniel grinned. "Because I like making French toast." "That works out, doesn't it?
Amanda HockingI feel pretty stupid that I don't know any foreign languages. I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese.
Bill GatesI'm all self-taught. I never had a teacher. Even for English, and French, and German, I hardly went to school.
Karl LagerfeldIt is less dangerous to draw a cartoon of Allah French-kissing Uncle Sam โ which, let me make it very clear, I have not done โ than it is to speak honestly about [working moms].
Tina FeyIn the history and literature courses I took, epistemological questions came to interest me most. What makes one explanation of the French Revolution better than another? What makes one interpretation of "Waiting for Godot" better than another? These questions led me to philosophy and then to philosophy of science.
Elliott SoberThe only consistent hobby I've had is studying Spanish and French because of some delusion of grandeur to work around the world. I love sports but usually I'm looking for the next job.
William SandersonThe French revolution was a .eune invented and constructed for the purpose of manufacturing liberty; but it had neither lever cogs, nor adjusting powers, and the consequences were that it worked so rapidly that it destroyed its own inventors, and set itself on fire.
Charles Caleb ColtonThroughout our history, there has been a long list of those we've been conditioned to hate. The British, French, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, Russians, Communists, Northern Koreans, Vietnamese, Iranians, Taliban, and both northerners and southerners in America are some of the people we've been encouraged at various times to call enemies and to hate. The list is long, and as time passes, those we were assigned to hate we later were told should be removed from our hate list. The enemy is obviously hatred itself. Have empathy for your assigned enemy.
Wayne Dyer