Charles De Gaulle Airport Quotes

She was beautiful and lithe, with soft skin the color of bread and eyes like green almonds, and she had straight black hair that reached to her shoulders, and an aura of antiquity that could just as well have been Indonesian as Andean. She was dressed with subtle taste: a lynx jacket, a raw silk blouse with very delicate flowers, natural linen trousers, and shoes with a narrow stripe the color of bougainvillea. 'This is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,' I thought, when I saw her pass by with the stealthy stride of a lioness, while I waited in the check-in line at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for the plane to New York. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Chapter One The weather in Paris was unusually warm as Peter Haskell's plane landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The plane taxied neatly to the gate, and a few minutes later, briefcase in hand, Peter was striding through the airport. He was almost smiling as he got on the customs line, despite the heat of the day and the number of people crowding ahead of him in line. Peter Haskell loved Paris. He generally traveled to Europe ~ Danielle Steel

Finding a taxi, she felt like a child pressing her nose to the window of a candy store as she watched the changing vista pass by while the twilight descended and the capital became bathed in a translucent misty lavender glow. Entering the city from that airport was truly unique. Charles de Gaulle, built nineteen miles north of the bustling metropolis, ensured that the final point of destination was veiled from the eyes of the traveller as they descended. No doubt, the officials scrupulously planned the airport's location to prevent the incessant air traffic and roaring engines from visibly or audibly polluting the ambience of their beloved capital, and apparently, they succeeded. If one flew over during the summer months, the visitor would be visibly presented with beautifully managed quilt-like fields of alternating gold and green appearing as though they were tilled and clipped with the mathematical precision of a slide rule. The countryside was dotted with quaint villages and towns that were obviously under meticulous planning control. When the aircraft began to descend, this prevailing sense of exactitude and order made the visitor long for an aerial view of the capital city and its famous wonders, hoping they could see as many landmarks as they could before they touched ground, as was the usual case with other major international airports, but from this point of entry, one was denied a glimpse of the city below. Green fields, villages, more fields, the ground grew closer ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

The weather in Paris was unusually warm as Peter Haskell's plane landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The plane taxied neatly to the gate, and a few minutes later, briefcase in hand, Peter was striding through the airport. He was almost smiling as he got on the customs line, despite the heat of the day and the number of people crowding ahead of him in line. Peter Haskell loved Paris. ~ Danielle Steel

Now we are intimately locked together. You get swine flu in Mexico; it's a problem for Charles de Gaulle Airport 24 hours later. Lehman Brothers goes down; the whole lot collapses. There are fires in the steppes of Russia; food riots in Africa. ~ Paddy Ashdown

The more I get to know men, the more I love dogs. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Nobody can easily bring together a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese' (Charles de Gaulle, 1961 speech) ~ Mark Kurlansky

I wholeheartedly welcomed Charles de Gaulle eulogy of French valour, to which he attributed the liberation of Paris. ~ Coco Chanel

Old France, weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal! ~ Charles De Gaulle

Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality ~ Charles De Gaulle

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History? ~ Charles De Gaulle

It so happens that the world is undergoing a transformation to which no change that has yet occurred can be compared, either in scope or in rapidity. ~ Charles De Gaulle

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I wouldn't mind dying for France, but not for Air France. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents ~ Charles De Gaulle

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro. ~ Charles De Gaulle

In order to be the master, the politician poses as the servant. ~ Charles De Gaulle

The Jackal was perfectly aware that in 1963 General de Gaulle was not only the President of France; he was also the most closely and skilfully guarded figure in the Western world. To assassinate him, as was later proved, was considerably more difficult than to kill President John F. Kennedy of the United States. Although the English killer did not know it, French security experts who had through American courtesy been given an opportunity to study the precautions taken to guard the life of President Kennedy had returned somewhat disdainful of those precautions as exercised by the American Secret Service. The French experts rejection of the American methods was later justified when in November 1963 John Kennedy was killed in Dallas by a half-crazed and security-slack amateur while Charles de Gaulle lived on, to retire in peace and eventually to die in his own home. ~ Frederick Forsyth

I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

[Charles de Gaulle] has been abysmally careless, like a man running a bus over mountains, who forgot to equip it with good brakes. ~ Janet Flanner

I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them. ~ Charles De Gaulle

It is better to have a bad method than to have none. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Treaties you see are like girls and roses; they last while they last. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I feel not a person but an instrument of destiny. ~ Charles De Gaulle

The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Recalled Sir Edward Spears, the wartime liaison between Churchill and de Gaulle. We had 15,000 French sailors at Liverpool. I went to speak to them. I tried to persuade them to continue the fighting. Impossible ... ~ Charles Kaiser

France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!"
In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:
"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!"
That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.
So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.
DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

For all of us Frenchmen, the guiding rule of our epoch is to be faithful to France. ~ Charles De Gaulle

One must speak little. In action one must say nothing. The chief is the one who does not speak. ~ Charles De Gaulle

And who is the hero of that story? Who slew the dragon [totalitarianism]? Yes, it was the ordinary man, the taxpayer, the grunt who fought and won the wars. Yes, it was America and its allies. Yes, it was the great leaders: FDR, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Truman, John Paul II, Thatcher, Reagan. But above all, victory required one man without whom the fight would have been lost at the beginning. It required Winston Churchill. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French. ~ Charles De Gaulle

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination. ~ Charles De Gaulle

A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec! ~ Charles De Gaulle

There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Character is the virtue of hard times. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then. ~ Charles De Gaulle

We are not here to laugh. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Never relinquish the initiative. ~ Charles De Gaulle

One cannot govern with 'buts'. ~ Charles De Gaulle

We may go to the moon, but that' s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us. ~ Charles De Gaulle

A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends. ~ Charles De Gaulle

The evolution toward Communism is inevitable. ~ Charles De Gaulle

For get this quite clear, every time we have to decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea we shall choose. Every time I have to decide between you [Charles de Gaulle] and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to ... dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts. ~ Charles De Gaulle

It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I'm not at all embarrassed to be a revolutionary. ~ Charles De Gaulle

No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent. ~ Charles De Gaulle

No nation has friends only interests. ~ Charles De Gaulle