Quotes About French

In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Within months, his army collapsed and fled. It was routed not by the Italian army but by a microbe. A mysterious new disease spread through sex killed many of Charles’s soldiers and left survivors weak and disfigured. French soldiers spread the disease across much of Europe, and then it moved into Africa and Asia. Many called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian disease. Arabs called it the Christian disease. Today, it is called syphilis.

Haiti was a French colony, but in 1804, the slaves rose up and defeated the French and formed the Republic. For the last 200 years, Haiti has had a very unfortunate history.

I studied French forever, and when do I ever speak French? I clearly should have studied Spanish. I wish I had stuck with music, because that would still be great. I really wish I had learned to surf earlier in my life.

We once discussed which were the cleanest troops in the trenches, taken by nationalities. We agreed on a descending-order like this: English and German Protestants; Northern Irish, Welsh and Canadians; Irish and German Catholics; Scots; Mohammedan Indians; Algerians; Portugese; Belgians; French. We put the Belgians and French there for spite; they could not have been dirtier than the Algerians and the Portugese.

The 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".

I have defended the interests of France at the G8 in Washington; afterwards I was at Chicago to announce the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan; I have participated in two European summits, so I have fully respected the engagements I made to the French.

Ho joined the French socialist party, the first Vietnamese to be a member of a French political party.

It wasn't a new idea. During the war against the French we had this kind of broadcast for the French soldiers.

I 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.

French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.

I even watched Mulholland Drive in French... it didn't make much more sense in French, but I have to say, it didn't make any less sense either.

She's French, so she's teaching them French, and their previous nanny was Spanish, so they're fluent in Spanish.

I have ten bucks in my pocket - what to spend it on? French fries - ten dollars' worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy.

The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture.

I only speak a little pigeon French. Just enough to get by with the little French pigeons.

I like French fries," I say. I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie.

I am not a priest, I am not an imam, I am not a rabbi and I am implementing the French laws on every French citizen.

Many Europeans think that all Moroccans speak French, but no. I had to make an effort to learn it when I studied French literature at the university in Rabat.

The 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.

In France, they make you feel that you cannot be two things at the same time. You can't be French and Arabic; you can't be French and Muslim.

I 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.

It may be a blessing in disguise...Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. Haitians were originally under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal. Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.

I never had to learn English, French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot.

That amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.

Mick Jagger could French-kiss a moose. He has child-bearing lips.

I actually go to the gym much more now than I did when I was on Buffy. I like to stay fit, because that's when I feel really healthy. But I never worked out for any kind of image. People have said to me, 'Do you starve yourself before photo shoots?' And I always say, 'No way.! That's what airbrushing is for. I had french fries last night.'

The main problem in marriage is that, for a man, sex is a hunger-like eating. If the man is hungry and can't get to a fancy French restaurant, he'll go to a hot dog stand. For a woman, what's important is love and romance.

I don't have to 'freedom-kiss' my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.

I am still associated with a heroic period in French cinema, and my name remains linked to this period.

I have had some problems because the French don't like people to have success, they don't like the number one.

The 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.

When a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies.

So why, after prior successes, did Obama's race/class/gender attack finally sputter out like the French at Waterloo?

The French people need to have all the facts so they can choose. And I won't be running away from it or hiding from it.

I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult. And you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be! What man can resist us?

How could they think Noel was hot? If this was REALLY Versailles, Noel SO would not be Louis XIV, he would be the French version of the village idiot

The German-French friendship is indispensable for Europe. And I will never let myself be carried away to making statements that would change it.

The 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.

Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French.

The French were always masters at mid-range. And I like the attitude.

Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once.

There 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.

I was with Brian De Palma at the time, and he said he wrote the role specifically for me. I don't know what that says about the way he saw me, since the role was of a castrating killer. Brian came one morning to the house, said "Here's your Christmas present." He wrote the character to have a Swedish accent, but since I couldn't pull that off, he switched it to French-Canadian. It was such a romantic time in my life. Everyone was young and passionate and convinced they were going to change film forever.

You chose to come to Paris, of all places,” Mencheres replied. So what? Got something against the French?

Chef: Any cook who swears in French.

I lifted my eyes to the heavens and asked for help because if God exists, there's no way he's French.

One 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.

She had died peacefully, in her sleep, after an evening of listening to all of her favorite Fred Astaire songs, one crackling record after another. Once the last chord of the last piece had died out, she had stood up and opened the French doors to the garden outside, perhaps waiting to breathe in the honeysuckle one more time.