Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 88
Writing 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 CumberbatchWhen we strengthen our relations with the Gulf states, when we cooperate with the Arabs, everybody asks if we are looking for a new geopolitical place. But in the Middle East and the Gulf, you can find German, French and British goods everywhere. German relations to these states are very good, as are English and French relations. Does this make them Arab-oriented?
Recep Tayyip ErdoganFrench rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.
Camille Paglia(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 GoldbergThe French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny.
Matt GroeningMy dear citizens, fellow citizens, French people, this 6th of May, have just chosen change by bringing me the presidency of the French republic. I feel the honor, which has been given to me and the task, the important task faced beyond - in front of you to serve my country.
Francois HollandeI became a pedant of the form. I did my graduate work in art history and particularly in the history of French satirical cartooning. And that made me aware of what a rich and resilient tradition this seemingly scabrous sacrilegious magazine still represented in French life.
Scott SimonI would argue, by the way, if the French citizens knew exactly what that was about, they would be applauding and popping Champagne corks. It's a good thing. It keeps the French safe. It keeps the U.S. safe.
Mike RogersThat amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.
Cornelia Otis SkinnerThe 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 ArnoldI went to a French school, so we didn't study Bram Stoker there. I just thought it was a genius thing.
Oliver Jackson-CohenDemocracy, thus French revolution, was not invented by philosophic theory nor by the bourgeois leadership. It was discovered by the masses in their method of action.
Raya DunayevskayaWe're all nothing but unified arrangements of atoms and particles, drifting around, enjoying consciousness every now and then for a second or so before splitting up to become bits and pieces of trees and stars and french fries.
Alan Dean FosterAfter the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.
Adam Michnik[The Women's Room by Marilyn French] was in my house somewhere, blew my mind, I was changed forever. And then I continued to read it at various points in my life, and it sort of opens up in a different way.
June Diane RaphaelYou get the feeling that many of my guests feel that the French language gives them entry into a more cultivated, more intelligent world, more highly civilised too, with rules.
Bernard PivotWhy would we expect the French to fight to liberate the Iraqis when they wouldn't fight to liberate themselves?
Rush LimbaughWhen I came to North America, it was hard. It was hard to understand, hard to get someone to understand me. I only knew Russian. I studied French in school, but it didn't help. I forgot most of that.
Pavel DatsyukThe 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 Treatise of the Three Impostors is a book that enjoyed centuries of notorious nonexistence until (as Voltaire would say) it became necessary to invent it. Georges Minois writes with empathy, erudition, and a novelist's sense of buildup and timing, weaving in the parallel story of Europe's courageous freethinkers. In the face of today's social and even legal pressures against criticizing religion, it is good to see an honorable French tradition asserting itself.
Joscelyn GodwinThe 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 HansonAfrican films should be thought of as offering as many different points of view as the film of any other different continent. Nobody would say that French film is all European film, or Italian film is all European film. And in the same way that those places have different filmmakers that speak to different issues, all the countries in Africa have that too.
Elvis MitchellWHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made; . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread "per capita" of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
Ambrose BierceMy family was blue collar, a middle-class kind of thing. My father was born in Detroit, Italian-American. My mother is English. She acted on the stage with Diana Dors. Her parents were French.
Lorraine BraccoFrench fries. I have been obsessed with them since I was born. I like big, big steak fries, curly fries, seasoned fries - any kind!
Corbin BleuIt's not what you know about the computer that's important, but your ability to do things with it. By studying French in an academic setting, you get to know a lot about it, but typically, you can't express yourself well or have an interesting conversation with it.
Seymour PapertI wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish.
Meg CabotI had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published.
Sally KirklandShaped a little like a loaf of French country bread, our brain is a crowded chemistry lab, bustling with nonstop neural conversations.
Diane AckermanI have no desire to vote for French politicians, and I'm not entitled to vote in Switzerland.
Jean-Luc GodardThe EU Constitution is something new in human history. Though it is not as eloquent as the French and U.S. constitutions, it is the first governing document of its kind to expand the human franchise to the level of global consciousness. The language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit.
Jeremy RifkinI 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 Chirac[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 MillayI met this wonderful guy who owned an old pub near the Eiffel Tower called Malone's (he's French but it's an Irish name). He had a cellar with a piano and told me I could use it whenever I wanted to. I played lots of gigs down there. When I came back I played a show at the Knitting Factory.
Regina SpektorThe thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur
George W. BushFor the most part, French cities are much better preserved and looked after than British cities, because the bourgeoisie, the people who run the cities, have always lived centrally, which has only recently begun to happen in big cities in England. Traditionally in England, people who had any money would live out in the suburbs. Now, increasingly, people with money live in the cities, but this has changed only in the last 20 or so years.
Jonathan MeadesI love chicken fingers, I love French fries. I love desserts. I'm not just into dessert or just into savoury food. I love it all. I'm a pig. I love food. So it takes a lot of discipline to eat healthy.
Holly MadisonThe central symbol for Canada-and this based on numerous instances of its occurrence in both English and French Canadian literature-is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance.
Margaret AtwoodI was glad I did a year abroad, because it helped me as an athlete and as a person. That took me out of my comfort zone. Watching the French athletes train in the Pyrenees made me realise what I had to do to become a top athlete.
Paula RadcliffeI really have no idea what the French think of my characters, or why The Devil All the Time did so well there.
Donald Ray Pollock