Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 83
We need French chaplains and imams, French-speaking, who learn French, who love France. And who adhere to its values. And also French financing.
Manuel VallsThe number of those who have to be assimilated to the majority is not too high. It remains small compared with the numbers of the majority. But there is one thing - and that is the main reason for this digression - that French and British have in common: to this day they have an immense pride in being French, in being British. The fact that in the meantime both have come down to earth a little has not yet affected their pride in their own nationality and the fact that, if I may express it that way, they are mutual admiration societies: how fine the British are, how fine the French are.
Norbert EliasWhen I am with French people, I am not aloof because I belong to them. My view is that the French president belongs to the French people, because he emanates from them. What I do is this: I am putting an end to the cronyism between politics and the media. For a president, constantly speaking to journalists, constantly being surrounded by journalists, has nothing to do with closeness to the people. A president should keep the media at arm's length.
Emmanuel MacronAn important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.
Daniel YerginThe most important quote about poetry and politics that I know is from a different situationist, Guy Debord. He was locked in a debate with the French Surrealists, many of whom by the 40s and 50s were part of the French communist party apparatus. Many Surrealists eventually argued for instrumentalizing art for political ends. Debord countered, "I don't want to put poetry in the service of revolution. I want to put revolution in the service of poetry".
Joshua Cloverall the French speak French - even the children. Many Americans and Britishers who visit the country never quite adjust to this, and the idea persists that the natives speak the language just to show off or be difficult.
Olivia de HavillandThere was never a choice to sing in English or French, that's the thing. We started a band and sang right away in English. You reproduce the thing you like, and most of the bands we liked were coming from England or the U.S. We also came to cherish the fact that there was no one in France singing in English -we were so happy Phoenix to be the first. Even if we are traitors to France, our country, which I'll never understand, because we talk about things that are very French.
Thomas MarsI could wish there were a treaty made between the French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make considerableconcessions. The English ought to give up their notorious violations of the unities, and all their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less declamation, and not to cram and to crowd things together to almost a degree of impossibility from a too scrupulous adherence to the unities.
Lord Chesterfield(T)he most important reason American leftists love France is that French elites say bad things about America. French intellectuals call us racist, stupid, imperialistic, simplistic, etc. ' and that alone is proof of their intellectualism. So long as you call America โracist,โ you could add that an enema is as good as a toothbrush and some professor of โcommunications theoryโ would applaud.
Jonah GoldbergSometimes it's just 'Oh my God, I love the taste of fried oysters on French bread with mayonnaise and an order of French fries.' I'm not going to lie to you - I deal with that temptation every single day, many times.
Richard SimmonsI think I get really into comfort music: '60s stuff, '50s stuff like Frankie Avalon. I love it - such simple songs, but so well written. That, and old French pop. I love that, because I don't speak French. It's all just pop music! But I love it because it just makes me focus on the melodies.
Michael Benjamin LernerThe French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny.
Matt GroeningSurround yourself with people who are the ketchup to your french fries-they make you a better version of yourself. Yes french fries are amazing on their own, but combined with ketchup they are a force. Spend time with people who bring out your true flavors, but don't overpower you.
Grace HelbigFood 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 RenoThe sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;- on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Matthew ArnoldA French poet famously referred to the aroma of certain cheeses as the โpieds de Dieuโโthe feet of god. Just to be clear: foot odor of a particularly exalted quality, but stillโfoot odor.
Michael Pollan"The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool." Our quote of the day is, from of all people, the Marquis de Sade, the most infamous writer in all of French literature. And by the way, if you recognized that quote, you're sick.
Tucker CarlsonThe French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.
P. J. O'RourkeI would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day.
Matt GroeningThe 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 Sagalthose two wholesome defects of the French people, malice and curiosity, both of which are essential to its greatness.
Marthe BibescoRichard Stark writes a harsh and frightening story of criminal warfare and vengeance with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity-a remarkable addition to the list of the shockers that the French call roman noirs.
Anthony BoucherIf a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
Jonathan SwiftThink of the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, Ciudadanos in Spain, Nowoczesna in Poland. These are early efforts to reimagine a liberalism which is neither right-wing nor left-wing in the traditional sense.
Anne ApplebaumThere was another war-related casualty today. The French were injured when they tried to jump on our bandwagon.
Jay LenoThey were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that.
Audie MurphyIf you go back a century in Europe, all over the place people were speaking different languages. There were dozens of languages in France and Italy, and they're all called French [and Italian], but they were not mutually comprehensible. They were different languages. And they have mostly disappeared in the last century or so. Some are being preserved, like Welsh, some are being revived, like Basque or Catelan to some extent. There are plenty of people in Europe who can't talk to their grandmother because they talk a different language.
Noam ChomskyCanadians were the first anti-Americans, and the best. Canadian anti-Americanism, just as the country's French-English duality, has for two centuries been the central buttress of our national identity.
Jack GranatsteinI guess bittersweet is probably my favorite tone, as a lover of Woody Allen and Federico Fellini and the French New Wave. You know, old Hollywood, sad movies. I guess it's my picture of suburban life, a lot of it being very, very lonely. I wanted to have that infused into the feeling of it.
Greg MottolaOne 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 SafireI think the term "interbeing" has cropped up in a lot of places. It's in the atmosphere, because it's just so true, and the time for that truth to be revealed to mass society is here. It's like in those French bakeries where they don't need to add yeast to the dough, because the yeast is so ambient in the air that the dough gets quickened whether or not you add yeast to it. Many people, even without doing a whole lot of study and reading, are coming to the same kinds of conclusions and perceptions about the world as I am.
Charles EisensteinWe French-Canadians belong to one country, Canada: Canada is for us the whole world: but the English-Canadians have two countries, one here and one across the sea.
Wilfrid LaurierI have no desire to vote for French politicians, and I'm not entitled to vote in Switzerland.
Jean-Luc GodardChestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth.
Daniel HandlerI would like to express to all Londoners, to all of the British people, the solidarity, the compassion and the friendship of France and the French people.
Jacques ChiracThere is tragic evidence to show that the paintings at the French prehistoric art sites are deteriorating.
Louis LeakeyShe glanced across to where Tilly and her brand new husband were posing for photographs, Tilly fluttering a fan coquettishly in front of her face. 'Unfortunately I didn't realise there was a French Revolutionary theme.' 'The Marie-Antoinette thing?' said Dexter. 'Well at least we know there'll be cake.
David NichollsI never wanted to work in fashion. At age 12 or 13, I wanted to design for showgirls - for the theater! And I was crazy for the Hollywood of the 1950s: Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones. They were my idea of glamour - and Sylvie Vartan, the French singer.
Christian Louboutin