French Accent Quotes

I love the word Quetzalcoatl.'
'The word!' he repeated.
His eyes laughed at her teasingly all the time.
'What do you think, Mrs Leslie,' cried the pale-faced young Mirabal, in curiously resonant English, with a French accent. 'Don't you think it would be wonderful if the gods came back to Mexico? our own gods?' He sat in intense expectation, his blue eyes fixed on Kate's face, his soup-spoon suspended.
Kate's face was baffled with incomprehension.
'Not those Aztec horrors!' she said.
'The Aztec horrors! The Aztec horrors! Well, perhaps they were not so horrible after all. But if they were, it was because the Aztecs were all tied up. They were in a cul de sac, so they saw nothing but death. Don't you think so?'
'I don't know enough!' said Kate.
'Nobody knows any more. But if you like the word Quetzalcoatl, don't you think it would be wonderful if he came back again? Ah, the names of the gods! Don't you think the names are like seeds, so full of magic, of the unexplored magic? Huitzilopochtli!--how wonderful! And Tlaloc! Ah! I love them! I say them over and over, like they say Mani padma Om! in Tibet. I believe in the fertility of sound. Itzpapalotl--the Obsidian Butterfly! Itzpapalotl! But say it, and you will see it does good to your soul. Itzpapalotl! Tezcatlipocá! They were old when the Spaniards came, they needed the bath of life again. But now, re-bathed in youth, how wonderful they must be! ~ D.H. Lawrence

The first thing I have to do to erase my French accent is think that it is actually possible, whereas for the moment, I think it's not. I have a lot of work. ~ Marion Cotillard

We're in her bedroom,and she's helping me write an essay about my guniea pig for French class. She's wearing soccer shorts with a cashmere sweater, and even though it's silly-looking, it's endearingly Meredith-appropriate. She's also doing crunches. For fun.
"Good,but that's present tense," she says. "You aren't feeding Captain Jack carrot sticks right now."
"Oh. Right." I jot something down, but I'm not thinking about verbs. I'm trying to figure out how to casually bring up Etienne.
"Read it to me again. Ooo,and do your funny voice! That faux-French one your ordered cafe creme in the other day, at that new place with St. Clair."
My bad French accent wasn't on purpose, but I jump on the opening. "You know, there's something,um,I've been wondering." I'm conscious of the illuminated sign above my head, flashing the obvious-I! LOVE! ETIENNE!-but push ahead anyway. "Why are he and Ellie still together? I mean they hardly see each other anymore. Right?"
Mer pauses, mid-crunch,and...I'm caught. She knows I'm in love with him, too.
But then I see her struggling to reply, and I realize she's as trapped in the drama as I am. She didn't even notice my odd tone of voice. "Yeah." She lowers herself slwoly back to the floor. "But it's not that simple. They've been together forever. They're practically an old married couple. And besides,they're both really...cautious."
"Cautious?"
"Yeah.You know.St. Clair doesn't rock the boat. And Ellie's the same w ~ Stephanie Perkins

Mindy runs to the DVD player and delicately places the disk in the holder and presses play. "Will you sit in this chair, please, Princess Mindy?" I ask, bowing deeply at the waist.
Mindy giggles as she replies, "I guess so."
After Mindy sits down, I take a wide-tooth comb and start gently combing out her tangles.
Mindy starts vibrating with excitement as she blurts, "Mr. Jeff, you're gonna fix my hair fancy, ain't you?"
"We'll see if a certain Princess can hold still long enough for me to finish," I tease. Immediately, Mindy becomes as still as a stone statue. After a couple of minutes, I have to say, "Mindy, sweetheart, it's okay to breathe. I just can't have you bouncing, because I'm afraid it will cause me to pull your hair."
Mindy slumps down in her chair just slightly. "Okay Mr. Jeff, I was ascared you was gonna stop," she whispers, her chin quivering.
I adopt a very fake, very over-the-top French accent and say, "Oh no, Monsieur Jeff must complete Princess Mindy's look to make the Kingdom happy.
Mindy erupts with the first belly laugh I've heard all day as she responds, "Okay, I'll try to be still, but it's hard 'cause I have the wiggles real bad."
I pat her on the shoulder and chuckle as I say, "Just try your best, sweetheart. That's all anyone can ask."
Kiera comes screeching around the corner in a blur, plunks her purse on the table, and says breathlessly, "Geez-O-Pete, I can't believe I'm late for the makeover. I ~ Mary Crawford

Say 'Synchronize watches', Motti." Con batted her eyelids. "You know I love it when you say 'Synchronize watches'." Motti glowered at Con, put on a bad falsetto French accent: "Would everyone kindly confirm their watch is telling the same time as their neighbour's watch, yes? ~ Stephen Cole

Can I give you a word of advice?" Lucy asked.
"I suppose so."
"You have a great French accent. If a guy asks you to wear a French maid's costume, kick him in the shin."
"Especially if it's one of my brothers" Solange agreed. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

You speak French and Italian?" Moe lounged back, crossing long legs. "Having been acquainted for years with that beautiful creature known as Latin, I try to savor its ornate, loquacious offspring. Yet the French accent eludes me." Karl smiled. Somehow this big guy with an easy, sliding smile and precise diction made you like him. Presence, that's it. "My wife can help you with that. Have dinner with us." Moe Berg ~ Gregory Benford

I remember walking the dog one day, I saw a car full of teenage girls, and one of them rolled down the window and yelled, 'Marc Jacobs!' in a French accent. ~ Marc Jacobs

Actually, she went off on a tangent, I told her about your mother at one point and she went all (H starts doing a lightly French accent) it is not fair for your friend, she is not going to get the important boredoms and mournings and melancholies that are her due and are owing to her just from being the age that she is, for now it will be interrupted by real mournings and real melancholies, anyway then i thought I'd bring the picture round to get away from her going on about it, then I thought I could ask you if you want to come out to the car park with me. ~ Ali Smith

Can we get out of here?"
"Your chariot awaits."
"In the form of a blue Ford ute?" I curved my brow.
"But of course," he said in an over-the-top French accent.
"Sacre blur, bad accent alert!"
"Wow," he said, "Le rude?"
"Le sorry?"
"Le hurt." Toby clutched his heart.
"What can I do to soothe your shattered ego?"
Toby drummed his chin thoughtfully, pacing around me. He stopped just near enough to whisper in my ear.
"Le kiss? ~ C.J. Duggan

In a French accent developed through a lifetime of using English I said, 'Hello sir, I would like to row the English Channel in a bath please.'
What actually arrived in the ear of the French Navy man was, 'Hello sire, I would like to fight a condom across a bath if you please. ~ Tim FitzHigham

The hemming and hawing is courtesy of Mrs. Duchamps, head of nursing, a small, snippy woman who always seems to know best. She's French: she should have stayed in France. Arrogant and unsympathetic, but she does have a cute French accent. ~ Hendrik Groen

Margot shrugged nonchalantly and took a sip of her water. Quinn took a sip of his water, still looking at her over the end of the bottle. She was holding a Nook in her lap, and he looked down at what she was reading. As he started reading a paragraph, he almost choked on his water, slapping a hand over his mouth before he spit it all over the place. Margot looked at him, startled.
"Are you alright?" she asked, concerned.
Quinn nodded. "Fine," he wheezed. "What the hell are you reading?"
Margot grinned. "It is a romance novel," she said, completely unashamed.
"A romance novel has graphic sex in it?" he asked, bewildered.
Margot laughed. "Some of them do." She shrugged.
He frowned. "Why are you reading that?"
"It is a good book." She grinned and wagged her eyebrows at him.
Quinn's lips twitched. Dammit. He didn't want to laugh, but she was seriously cute when she wagged her eyebrows at him.
"Would you like me to read some to you?" she asked in a low sultry voice, while giving him a suggestive little wink.
Quinn swallowed hard. "No. That's okay," he croaked. If she read that book to him in her sexy French accent, he would be sporting a tent, and he doubted the rest of the people on the plane would appreciate that.
"No? The woman in it is very sexy," Margot purred, giving him a naughty smirk.
Quinn narrowed his eyes at her. Was she trying to get him worked up? Well, two could play that game. He leaned in closer ~ Andria Large

I was too far away to observe what color Enid Starkie's eyes were; all I remember of her is that she dressed like a matelot, walked like a scrum-half, and had an atrocious French accent. ~ Julian Barnes

And then a man of forty or so, with a French accent, asked, "How do you achieve the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem?" And something cracked open in me, and I finally stopped hoarding and told them my most useful secret. The only secret that has helped me consistently over all the years that I've written. I said, "Well, I'll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask myself: What was the very best moment of your day??" The wonder of it was, I told them that this one question could lift out from my life exactly what I will want to write a poem about. Something I hadn't known was important will leap out and hover there in front of me, saying I am - I am the best moment of the day. I noticed two people were writing down what I was saying. Often, I went on, it's a moment when you're waiting for someone, or you're driving somewhere, or maybe you're just walking across a parking lot and admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed across the windshield. I thought, Ah, of course - I'd forgotten. You, windshield shadows, you are the best moment of the day. "And that's my secret, such as it is," I said. ~ Nicholson Baker

Though grammatically perfect, a French accent stretches his English out of shape. ~ Stacey Lee

Jean-Claude's eyes widened just a bit. 'Ma petite, you have had a busy night, I see.' His French accent was as thick as I'd heard it in a while, which meant he was feeling strong emotions that he couldn't quite hide, but he was trying. I appreciated the effort, because the accent alone meant that what he wanted to say was his version of, You are covered in blood and worse, which means you were in horrible danger and probably nearly died … again! How can you keep risking yourself like that when I love you so much? ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I've worn Niki's pants for two days now. I thought a third day in the same clothes might be pushing it."

Ian shrugged with indifference. "It might send Derian through the roof, but it doesn't bother me. Wear what you want to wear."

Eena wrinkled her nose at him. "Do you really feel that way or are you trying to appear more laissez-faire than Derian?"

"More laissez-faire?"

"Yes. That's a real word."

"Two words actually," he grinned. "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" He coated the words with a heavy French accent. Eena gawked at him.

"Since when do you speak French?"

"I don't." Ian chuckled. "But I did do some research in world history the year I followed you around on Earth. Physics was a joke, but history - that I found fascinating."

Slapping a hand against her chest, Eena exclaimed, "I can't believe it! Unbeknownst to me, Ian actually studied something in high school other than the library's collection of sci-fi paperbacks!"

He grimaced at her exaggerated performance before defending his preferred choice of reading material. "Hey, popular literature is a valuable and enlightening form of world history. You would know that if you read a book or two."

She ignored his reproach and asked with curiosity, "What exactly did you say?"

"In French?"

"Duh, yes."

"Don't 'duh' me, you could easily have been referring to ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Ever since I first visited New Orleans back in '89, I've been intrigued by the French Quarter. I always wanted to set something in the Quarter, whether it was historic or contemporary. Unfortunately, I was always tied up with previous commitments - earlier multiple contracts - and could not get a crack at it. ~ Robert Asprin

Can I help you?"
"Yes sugar," Suddenly I had a southern accent. ~ K.F. Germaine

In the late 1930s, both the British and American movie industries made a succession of films celebrating the decency of the British Empire in order to challenge the threatening tide of Nazism and fascism and also to provide employment for actors from Los Angeles's British colony. The best two were Hollywood's Gunga Din and Britain's The Four Feathers. ~ Philip French

I'm mesmerized by the way he speaks - New Orleans is pronounced N'awlins. When he says backyard, it's backyaaad. It's the kind of voice that makes you feel instantly at home, like you're a close friend or part of the inner circle.
- SINGLE-MINDED ~ Lisa Daily

Lascelles threw himself into the carriage, snorting with laughter and saying that he had never in his life heard of anything so ridiculous and comparing their snug drive through the London streets in Mr. Norrell's carriage to ancient French and Italian fables where fools set sail in milk-pails to fetch the moon's reflection from the bottom of a duckpond ... ~ Susanna Clarke

Eating a raw oyster is like french kissing a mermaid. ~ Tom Robbins

Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

I am proposing to you as a rallying emblem the letter V, because V is the first letter of the words 'Victoire' in French, and 'Vrijheid' in Flemish ... the Victory which will give us back our freedom, the Victory of our good friends the English. Their word for Victory also begins with V. As you see, things fit all round. ~ Victor De Laveleye

The closest I'd ever got to seeing a naked woman before was black and white cleavage, and then Rosie tossed her clothes in a corner just like they were getting in the way and spun around in the dim light of Number 16, palms up, luminous, laughing, almost close enough to touch. The thought still knocks the wind out of me. I was too young even to know what I wanted to do about her, I just knew nothing in the World, not the Mona Lisa walking through the Grand Canyon with the Holy Grail in one hand and a winning lotto ticket in the other, was ever going to be that beautiful. ~ Tana French

Lexie Madison developed out of nothing like a Polaroid, she curled off the page and hung in the air like incense smoke, a girl with my face and a life from a half-forgotten dream. ~ Tana French

The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale. ~ Orson Scott Card

And actually, the word "happiness" translates as bonheur in French, which literally means "a good hour" or "good time". It's something you experience. ~ Jamie Cat Callan

I like you. And I don't mean as a friend. ~ Stephanie Perkins

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously. ~ Vivien Leigh

Dr Jaffery said that very few people in Delhi now wanted to study classical Persian, the language which, like French in Imperial Russia, had for centuries been the first tongue of every educated Delhi-wallah. 'No one has any interest in the classics today,' he said. 'If they read at all, they read trash from America. They have no idea what they are missing. The jackal thinks he has feasted on the buffalo when in fact he has just eaten the eyes, entrails and testicles rejected by the lion. ~ William Dalrymple

These ideas grew out of the Enlightenment; their roots are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt's Limits of State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. ~ Noam Chomsky

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

If you're a soldier-- even if you're French-- you're supposed to try very hard to escape captivity!"
-Germany ~ Hidekaz Himaruya

There is a better chance of getting an exciting painting from a laboured study with texture than from a fine drawing without it. ~ John French Sloan

I never felt like that in my life. I didn't know human beings played these instruments. I heard them in Chicago and Louisville and St. Louis all my life, you know? But I didn't know human beings played them, you know? So the next day I went to Coontz Junior High School and I started on sousaphone, tuba, B-flat baritone, E-flat alto, French horn, trombone. ~ Quincy Jones

Immediately when you arrive in Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness. An incredible, absolute silence prevails outside the towns; and within, even in busy places like the markets, there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force which, resenting the intrusion of sound, minimizes and disperses sound straightaway. Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem fainthearted efforts. Solid and luminous, it is always the focal point of the landscape. At sunset, the precise, curved shadow of the earth rises into it swiftly from the horizon, cutting into light section and dark section. When all daylight is gone, and the space is thick with stars, it is still of an intense and burning blue, darkest directly overhead and paling toward the earth, so that the night never really goes dark.
You leave the gate of the fort or town behind, pass the camels lying outside, go up into the dunes, or out onto the hard, stony plain and stand awhile alone. Presently, you will either shiver and hurry back inside the walls, or you will go on standing there and let something very peculiar happen to you, something that everyone who lives there has undergone and which the French call 'le bapteme de solitude.' It is a unique sensation, and it has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears...A strange, and by no means p ~ Paul Bowles

His mother had told him that when you looked into the eyes of God at the pearly gates, all the questions you ever had were answered.
Ronan had a lot of questions.
Waking Glendower might be like that. Fewer angels attending, and maybe a heavier Welsh accent. Slightly less judgment. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The key to the U.N.'s global warming study was man's use of aerosol spray. You have to know the French were involved in a study concluding that Arrid Extra Dry is destroying the Earth. In a world in which everyone smelled, the French would be at no disadvantage. Aerosol spray. How convenient. ~ Ann Coulter

When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated ~ Sun Tzu

These three children own the summer. They know the wood as surely as they know the microlandscapes of their own grazed knees;put them down blindfolded in any dell or clearing and they could find their way out without putting a foot wrong. ~ Tana French

Money is the most important thing because there might be a time when you have no label behind you and you have to carry yourself. Money is the only thing that can shield you. ~ French Montana

The French magazine Parents says that if a baby is scared of strangers, his mother should warn him that a visitor will be coming over soon. Then, when the doorbell rings, 'Tell him that the guest is here. Take a few seconds before opening the door . . . if he doesn't cry when he sees the stranger, don't forget to congratulate him.' I hear of several cases where, upon bringing a baby home from the maternity hospital, the parents give the baby a tour of the house.9 French parents often tell babies what they're doing to them: I'm picking you up, I'm changing your nappy, I'm going to give you a bath. This isn't just to make soothing sounds; it's to convey information. And since the baby is a person like any other, parents are often quite polite about all this. (Plus it's apparently never too early to start instilling good manners.) ~ Pamela Druckerman

Unlike babies, phenomena are typically born long before humans give them names. Zurara did not call Black people a race. French poet Jacques de Brézé first used the term "race" in a 1481 hunting poem. In 1606, the same diplomat who brought the addictive tobacco plant to France formally defined race for the first time in a major European dictionary, "Race…means descent," Jean Nicot wrote in the Trésor de la langue française. "Therefore, it is said that a man, a hors, a dog or another animal is from a good or bad race." From the beginning, to make races was to make racial hierarchy.

Gomes de Zurara grouped all those peoples from Africa into a single race for that very reason: to create hierarchy, the first racist idea. Race making is an essential ingredient in the making of racist ideas, the crust that holds the pie. Once a race has been created it must be filled in-and Zurara filled it with negative qualities that would justify Prince Henry's evangelical mission to the world. This Black race of people was lost, living "like beasts, without any custom of reasonable beings, " Zurara wrote. "They had no understanding of good, but only knew how to live in a bestial sloth. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

At least this is a nation, with a religion, a head, a status, a policy. Not a damned Noah's ark: a chicken here, a lamb there, a family of wolves in the next field. I suppose you are proud of your French Queen, playing dice with Scots knucklebones for the greater glory of her native land? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The corners of Cooper's mouth tucked in, which is as close as he gets to a smile. He said, "Do come in. ~ Tana French

Coming in and out of Hollywood for pilot season, I may have to thicken my accent or hear that, physically, I'm not Latino. I not only am, but there's another 50,000 people who look exactly like me. ~ Carlos Ponce

In terms of foods for me, I think I have more of the usual associations - foods from childhood that I associate with care and love, from relatives or special restaurants like the kind elderly man who dusted seasoning salt on French fries at the corner burger joint. ~ Aimee Bender

We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to. ~ Tana French

Ever, can't you just relax and enjoy the view? When was the last time you were in Paris anyway?"

"Never. I've never been to Paris. And I hate to break it to you, Ava, but this - is not Paris. This is like some cranked up Disney version of Paris. Like, you've taken a pile of travel brochures and French postcards, and scenes from that adorable cartoon movie Ratatouille, mixed them all together and voila, created this. ~ Alyson Noel

The moms and dads and grandparents didn't wear suits like the lawyers and judge. They wore sweatpants and stretchy pants and T-shirts. Their hair was a bit frizzy. And it was the first time I noticed "TV accents" - the neutral accent that so many news anchors had. The social workers and the judge and the lawyer all had TV accents. None of us did. The people who ran the courthouse were different from us. The people subjected to it were not. ~ J.D. Vance

I was a working-class kid from Boston. But I never lost my accent because I felt like that was what I was doing. I didn't have to perform Woody Guthrie like Bob Dylan did in the '60s, I just had to make myself be Eileen Myles and let that be my shield. ~ Eileen Myles

You get what you give," we will tell his sorry, selfish ass." The Betty Lady has spoken. I detect a Bronx accent.
"But," I demur, "it will make the other woman say, ´See? She IS a jealous and paranoid and pushy wife.´"
The Betty Lady rips open a cell phone statement with a nail file and, without looking up at me, says, "Let me tell you something, honey. In my experience? The only thing they care about is what they see in the mirror each morning and WINNING...or their perception of winning. ~ Suzanne Finnamore

The British and French governments have taken a strong stance against 'extremist content' online when addressing their approach to tackling extremism. ~ Maajid Nawaz

St. Clair tucks the tips of his fingers into his pockets and kicks the cobblestones with the toe of his boots. "Well?" he finally asks.
"Thank you." I'm stunned. "It was really sweet of you to bring me here."
"Ah,well." He straightens up and shrugs-that full-bodied French shrug he does so well-and reassumes his usual, assured state of being. "Have to start somewhere. Now make a wish."
"Huh?" I have such a way with words. I should write epic poetry or jingles for cat food commercials.
He smiles. "Place your feet on the star, and make a wish."
"Oh.Okay,sure." I slide my feet together so I'm standing in the center. "I wish-"
"Don't say it aloud!" St. Clair rushes forward, as if to stop my words with his body,and my stomach flips violently. "Don't you know anything about making wishes? You only get a limited number in life. Falling stars, eyelashes,dandelions-"
"Birthday candles."
He ignores the dig. "Exactly. So you ought to take advantage of them when they arise,and superstition says if you make a wish on that star, it'll come true." He pauses before continuing. "Which is better than the other one I've heard."
"That I'll die a painful death of poisoning, shooting,beating, and drowning?"
"Hypothermia,not drowning." St. Clair laughs. He has a wonderful, boyish laugh. "But no. I've heard anyone who stands here is destined to return to Paris someday. And as I understand it,one year for you is one year to many. Am I right?"
I cl ~ Stephanie Perkins

Mr. Stone is a jackass."
That was Alex's greeting when he found me in the hall Friday afternoon.
"Probably," I agreed, levering myself out of the corner where I'd been waiting, on nervous Hannanda alert, for him to show up. "But I don't think he can help it."
"Generous of you." Alex swung his backpack from his left shoulder to his right, then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, pulled mine out of my hand. I was too surprised to stop him. "Allons-y."
We turned a few heads as we went. I would have happily met him a block away from school, but he'd preempted my cowardice, sliding a note into my locker that morning. Front hall, 3:15. I ignored the stares as Alex held the big front door open for me, my heavily inked bag dangling from his wrist. I figured any speculation would last only as long as it would take for us to hit the street in front of the school. By then, at least one "Wait. Wait. Alex Bainbridge left with Freddy Krueger?" would have been met with "Yeah. He's tutoring her in French. Winslow's making him. ~ Melissa Jensen

DON Luigi Giussani used to quote this example from Bruce Marshall's novel To Every Man a Penny. The protagonist of the novel, the abbot Father Gaston, needs to hear the confession of a young German soldier whom the French partisans are about to sentence to death. The soldier confesses his love of women and the numerous amorous adventures he has had. The young priest explains that he has to repent to obtain forgiveness and absolution. The soldier answers, "How can I repent? It was something that I enjoyed, and if I had the chance I would do it again, even now. How can I repent?" Father Gaston, who wants to absolve the man who has been marked by destiny and who's about to die, has a stroke of inspiration and asks, "But are you sorry that you are not sorry?" The young man answers impulsively, "Yes, I am sorry that I am not sorry." In other words, he apologizes for not repenting. The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in ... . ~ Pope Francis

The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed in a pitiless, forward direction, its politics and its language becoming ever more gross and simplistic: the Revolution is always flexible, subtle, elegant. ~ Hilary Mantel

I love the French edition with its uncut pages. I would not want a reader too lazy to use a knife on me. ~ Lawrence Durrell

That's not me talking, it's your inner voice. I'd attempt the accent, only I don't speak low self-esteem. It's a language I've never needed to learn. ~ Sophie Hannah