Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 88
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 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 BartoliYou know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses, and he wears a beret. He is French, people.
Conan O'BrienTo me there are two Hitlers: one who existed until the end of the French war; the other begins with the Russian campaign. In the beginning he was genial and pleasant. He would have extraordinary willpower and unheard-of influence on people. The important thing to remember is that the first Hitler, the man who I knew until the end of the French war, had much charm and goodwill. He was always frank. The second Hitler, who existed from the beginning of the Russian campaign until his suicide, was always suspicious, easily upset, and tense. He was distrustful to an extreme degree.
Hermann GoringWe know that the French are very different from the Americans in their satisfaction with life. They're much less satisfied. Americans are pretty high up there, while the French are quite low - the world champions in life satisfaction are actually the Danes.
Daniel KahnemanThe 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 GuilianoMovies in this country, its very complicated, and we could bang on about it forever, but the French movie industry is very different because its very obviously French.
Mick JaggerJohn Kerry speaks French fluently. Democrats are saying he's one in a million. A war hero who speaks French, isn't it more like one in a trillion?
Jay LenoMy film is actually very critical of the level of French we're using back home. To have an immigrant from an ancient French colony come and do that is a little critical of our education system back home. Balzac is definitely over their heads. It's meant to be funny also because it would be also probably too much for kids in France, but kids in France would know who Balzac is. But, back home at that age, I guarantee you they don't know who he is.
Philippe FalardeauI'm ready to become a French person amongst French people, and more than ever I have the love for my country deeply ingrained in my heart.
Nicolas SarkozyThe French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you; they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking.
Fran LebowitzMy 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 HollandeThere is no word in English for chic. Why should there be? Everything chic is by legend French. Perhaps everything chic is in reality French.
Elizabeth HawesImperialism has now reached a degree of almost scientific perfection. It uses White workers to conquer the non-white workers of The Colonies. Then, it hurls the non-white workers of one colony against those of another non-white colony. Finally, it relies on the Colored workers of the colonies to rule the White workers. Recently, White French soldiers near mutiny in the occupied Ruhr of Germany, were surrounded by French African soldiers, and colored native light-infantry were sent against White German strikers.
Ho Chi MinhIn New York I pretty much live in diners - I order French Fries, Diet Coke floats and lots of coffee.
Lana Del ReyThe 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 dont think theres a back lot here in Hollywood anymore that has those streets, like a French Quarter.
Glenn DanzigThe U.S. directed the war against South Vietnam. There was a political settlement in 1954. But in the late '50's the United States organized an internal repression in South Vietnam, not using its troops, but using the local apparatus it was constructing. This was a very significant and very effective campaign of violence and terrorism against the Vietminh - which was the communist-led nationalist force that fought the French. And the Vietminh at that time was adhering to the Geneva Accords, hoping that the political settlement would work out in South Vietnam.
Noam ChomskyI think Brian Moore's gnashers are the kind you get from a DIY shop and hammer in yourself. He is the only player we have who looks like a French forward.
Paul RandallAn 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 WhartonI have had some problems because the French don't like people to have success, they don't like the number one.
Alain ProstCulture and tradition have to change little by little. So 'new' means a little twist, a marriage of Japanese technique with French ingredients. My technique. Indian food, Korean food; I put Italian mozzarella cheese with sashimi. I don't think 'new new new.' I'm not a genius. A little twist.
Masaharu MorimotoThere's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses.
Joely RichardsonI mean, already in the French Revolution, the harpsichord becomes identified with the aristocracy, with the ancien regime. Plus, hey, you know, I mean, harpsichord is a really easy target, isn't it? I mean, it's - it's just how it is.
Mahan EsfahaniIn this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca.
VoltaireIn Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.
Julian BarnesIt's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.
John Dos PassosThe world is a big place, and there are many paths that lead to success. This applies to both political and economic concepts. For this reason, we see no need to stoically pursue the Chinese, American or French way. But we have socialism in common with China.
Nguyen Minh TrietBecause French is the language of love, my boy. Something you should keep in mind, but will soon forget.
William W. JohnstoneThe 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 GodwinI cling to the basic set of tenets laid out in Tom Wolfe's 'New Journalism' - to get out there like the great French novelists of the 19th century and study life. I am a Tom Wolfe fan of the first order.
Peter YorkDo you realize that in the past sixty years, the only foreigners the French have been able to drive out are American tourists?
Robert OrbenI think it's important to be sincere. And I could be the most sincere just staying in [my] mother language actually. And that's the reason why I stay composing and writing in French.
StromaeFrench women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.
Mireille GuilianoThere 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 MurphyYou donโt want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I donโt want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.
Dorothy ParkerThere were the events of 1968 when young people began to ask their parents, what did you do in the war? And since the middle- or late-'70s, the French have been absolutely obsessed with the Vichy regime. They have an institute of contemporary history that turns out first-rate scholarly work. Their textbooks are accurate. Whether the students actually read them is another matter.
Robert O. PaxtonYou chose to come to Paris, of all places,โ Mencheres replied. So what? Got something against the French?
Jeaniene FrostI think that nudity is beautiful. Sometimes it can be awful, but when it's beautiful? Cinema is the art about reality; it's art from reality. In French we say l'art de la realite. You show reality, so you have to show bodies.
Lea SeydouxI did not want to be taken for a fool-the typical French reason for performing the worst of deeds without remorse.
Jules Amedee Barbey d'AurevillyMy father is Jewish, and I look exactly like him My mother is British, but she's of French extraction.
Joan CollinsI have extremely friendly feelings for German chancellor. I think Angela Merkel is very courageous, and that is one reason I have such great respect for her. But I also know that she has now survived French presidents for 12 years. I am constantly trying to imagine all the mistakes my predecessors made and to avoid repeating them.
Emmanuel MacronMy History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.
John AdamsFor 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 Meades