Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 99
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 JellounWe have talked about revoking French citizenship for some individuals. Therefore, I have decided to apply for citizenship, which in a way points out the contradictions of this bill that states the forfeiture of French citizenship exclusively to individuals holding dual nationalities. Through this application, I put myself in the midst of the French political debate and discredit everything that might be said against me about this matter.
Tariq RamadanIn France cooking is a serious art form and a national sport. I think the French enjoy the complication of the art form and the cooking for cooking's sake. You can talk with a concierge or police officer about food in France as a general rule. It is not the general rule here. Classical cuisine, which I hope we are going back to, means certain ways of doing things and certain ways of not doing things. If you know classical French cooking you can do anything. If you don't know the basics, you turn out slop.
Julia ChildFrance can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.
Adam MichnikOne of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of โfrench friesโ to โfreedoom friesโ and โfrench toastโ to โfreedom toastโ. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.
Johnny DeppTo 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 GoringThe 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 JaggerI'd rather be thought as an international actress rather than a French one. Because I don't know what's coming up for me, my ambition is not to be typecast. So I'm working on my English accent, as well as my American one. I don't want to be like 'Okay, I'm French, and I want to succeed in Hollywood!'
Eva GreenI think that what people abroad want from French film, inside French film becomes our worst fear, "Oh, another film about love!"
Louis GarrelAnybody who French bashes just might as well wear a badge that says 'I am a follower! I don't think for myself and I have no idea what I'm talking about.' That would be a French basher.
Janeane GarofaloThe French legend is a very simple one. All really beautiful clothes are designed in the houses of the French couturiers and all women want those clothes.
Elizabeth HawesI 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.
Karl LagerfeldThe frontiers are not east or west, north or south; but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be a neighbor, there is anunsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it. Let him build himself a log house with the bark on where he is, fronting IT, and wage there an Old French war for seven or seventy years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else may come between him and the reality, and save his scalp if he can.
Henry David ThoreauI dont think theres a back lot here in Hollywood anymore that has those streets, like a French Quarter.
Glenn DanzigThe consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.
Charles Caleb ColtonPalestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.
Mahatma GandhiWe need the security standards to apply to the internet. We need to be able to trust that when we send our emails through Verizon, that Verizon isn't sharing with the NSA, that Verizon isn't sharing them with the FBI or German intelligence or French intelligence or Russian intelligence or Chinese intelligence.
Edward SnowdenSo why, after prior successes, did Obama's race/class/gender attack finally sputter out like the French at Waterloo?
Victor Davis HansonVery often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it's kind of like, "oh!", and you can't go out; you're stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.
Emmanuelle BeartIn 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.
VoltaireJust speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!
Julia ChildOne thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do.
Mads MikkelsenIt's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.
John Dos PassosThe 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 SagalThe German-French friendship is indispensable for Europe. And I will never let myself be carried away to making statements that would change it.
Francois HollandeBecause French is the language of love, my boy. Something you should keep in mind, but will soon forget.
William W. JohnstoneMainly I was able to perform with music - I played the French horn, I would sing, and I was a drummer in the pipe band. So I think it was a way to show off.
Ewan McGregorThe French philosopher Pierre-Hyacinthe Azaรฏs (1766-1845) formalized the statement that good and evil fortune are exactly balanced in that they produce for each person an equivalent result.
Richard Arnold EpsteinSauces comprise the honor and glory of French cookery. They have contributed to its superiority, or pre-eminence, which is disputed by none. Sauces are the orchestration and accompaniment of a fine meal, and enable a good chef or cook to demonstrate his talent.
CurnonskyI'm going to Iowa for an award. Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, it's sold out. Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French government - I'd give it all up for one erection.
Groucho MarxWhat is this thing called a kiss? French, tongue, soul, chaste, motherly, fatherly, brotherly, sisterly, ass, genital, Judas, trembling, rough, hesitant, sweet, soft, wet, dying, fevered, good-night, farewell, burning, and chocolate.
Gilbert SorrentinoI 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'm French. I have not become an Englishman. I have the impression of living on an island called Arsenal. If you fancy a sightseeing tour of London, don't ask me. You would get lost.
Arsene WengerMy favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two-thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature, I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.
Fran LebowitzIf we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasing dreams, it is as the French say, tant gagne, so much added to the pleasure of life.
Benjamin FranklinBryn ate her bagel in silence, and by the time she was finished, Liam had already neatly packed her overnight bag and loaded it in MacAllister's car. He even included a new dog bed for Mr. French to travel in confort. Lunch was in moducal little boxes. "I think he is Alfred." "Actually, I often wonder if he's Batman.
Rachel CaineThe annals of the French Revolution prove that the knowledge of the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the many.... The light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small minority, points out the possessors as the victims rather than the illuminators of the multitude.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeIt is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves.
C. L. R. JamesUnder the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.
Ralph Waldo Emerson