French Legion Quotes

Can you hyperventilate a little quieter?" he whispered. ~ Brynn Kelly

The woman raked her gaze up his body as if checking out livestock. As she reached his face, her kohl-rimmed brown eyes lit with a challenge. "I am the one you know as Hamid Nabil Hassan. The most wanted man in the world. ~ Brynn Kelly

Gunfire cracked around them.
"Just warning shots," he yelled.
"How do you know?"
"We're not dead. ~ Brynn Kelly

In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter. ~ Neville Chamberlain

After September 11, I wondered rhetorically midway through a column what we in the West are prepared to die for, and got a convoluted e-mail back from a French professor explaining that the fact that Europeans weren't prepared to die for anything was the best evidence of their superiority: they were building a post-historical utopia - a Europe it would not be necessary to die for. But sometimes you die anyway. ~ Mark Steyn

Just as the Mediterranean separated France from the country Algiers, so did the Mississippi separate New Orleans proper from Algiers Point. The neighborhood had a strange mix. It looked seedier and more laid-back all at the same time. Many artists lived on the peninsula, with greenery everywhere and the most beautiful and exotic plants. The French influence was heavy in Algiers, as if the air above the water had carried as much ambience as it could across to the little neighborhood. There were more dilapidated buildings in the community, but Jackson and Buddy passed homes with completely manicured properties, too, and wild ferns growing out of baskets on the porches, as if they were a part of the architecture. Many of the buildings had rich, ornamental detail, wood trim hand-carved by craftsmen and artisans years ago. The community almost had the look of an ailing beach town on some forgotten coast. ~ Hunter Murphy

Nobody in the world can make you crazy like your family can. ~ Tana French

I have an idea that all sensible people
will ultimately be damned. ~ Nora May French

The soup-kitchen was behind the cathedral; it remained only to determine which, of the many and beautiful churches of Cracow, was the cathedral. Whom could one ask, and how? A priest walked by; I would ask the priest. Now the priest, young and of benign appearance, understood neither French nor German; as a result, for the first and only time in my post-scholastic career, I reaped the fruits of years of classical studies, carrying on the most extravagant and chaotic of conversations in Latin. After the initial request for information (Pater optime, ubi est menas pauperorum?), we began to speak confusedly of everything, of my being a Jew, of the Lager (castra? better: Lager, only too likely to be understood by everybody), of Italy, of the danger of speaking German in public (which I was to understand soon after, by direct experience), and of innumerable other things, to which the unusual dress of the language gave a curious air of the remotest past. ~ Primo Levi

If we lose the war, our creditors - mainly Americans - will go bankrupt. And if we win, we'll make the Germans pay. 'Reparations' is the word they use." "How will they manage it?" "They will starve. But nobody cares what happens to the losers. Anyway, the Germans did the same to the French in 1871." He stood up and put his cup in the kitchen sink. "So you see why we can't make peace with Germany. Who then would pay the bill?" Ethel was aghast. "And so we have to keep sending boys to die in the trenches. Because we can't pay the bill. Poor Billy. What a wicked world we live in." "But ~ Ken Follett

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

It totally was elitist,' Julia says. 'So? There's nothing wrong with elitist. Some stuff is better than other stuff; pretending it's not doesn't make you open-minded, it just makes you a dick. ~ Tana French

The strongest army in the world [the French] facing no more than twenty-six [German] divisions, sitting still and sheltering behind steel and concrete while a quixotically valiant ally was being exterminated! ~ J. F. C. Fuller

People who share the same language, French or Chinese or whatever, have the same vocal cords and emit sounds which are basically the same, as they come from the same throats and lungs. ~ Pierre Schaeffer

There was something beautiful in someone trying to purchase happiness for a dying woman via a three-dollar box of french fries. I remember hoping that one dally someone would buy me french fries if that's all I wanted, even if he knew they'd be no good in the end.
I remember understanding what love really is.It didn't hurt; it didn't ignore your prayers, didn't seem to not care that your mom was dying. It didn't leave you wondering what you did wrong. Love tried to make you happy, even if it was useless. Love would do you anything to make you happy. ~ Jackson Pearce

The only consistent hobby I've had is studying Spanish and French because of some delusion of grandeur to work around the world. I love sports but usually I'm looking for the next job. ~ William Sanderson

Fledgling designers need investment - but how much easier it is to put them in a dead man or woman's shoes, perhaps also backing the new designer's namesake line, but only as what the French call a 'danseuse,' a plaything. ~ Suzy Menkes

The Legion thinks opening your heart to someone and trusting them with it is too much of a risk - well, I'm telling you, it's worth it." He grazed his knuckles against my cheek, and flipped a curl behind my ear. "You're worth it. ~ Lindsey Duga

I'm always feeling like I don't belong, no matter where I am. So I'm just searching for a family nonstop, and sometimes I find it in the mosh pit, sometimes I find it when I'm doing some French TV show with the president's wife. ~ James Hetfield

All the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America." "How?" Almanzo asked. "Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

The anglophones are Quebecers, as are the French, as are the new Quebecers. ~ Pauline Marois

Actually, this is an interesting question,' the instructor said. 'What is the difference between culture and law? In France, we say we are French before we are anything else. ~ Rosecrans Baldwin

Don't just stand there with your Eiffel Tower smile. Tell me you love me, and tell me in French. ~ Jarod Kintz

A good writer is likely to know and use, or find out and use, the words for common architectural features, like "lintel," "newel post," "corbelling," "abutment," and the concrete or stone "hems" alongisde the steps leading up into churches or public buildings; the names of carpenters' or pumbers' tools, artists' materials, or whatever furniture, implements, or processes his characters work with; and the names of common household items, including those we do not usually hear named, often as we use them. Above all, the writer should stretch his vocabulary of ordinary words and idioms--words and idioms he sees all the time and knows how to use but never uses. I mean here not language that smells of the lamp but relatively common verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The serious-mined way to vocabulary is to read through a dictionary, making lists of all the common words one happens never to use. And of course the really serious-minded way is to study languages--learn Greek, Latin, and one or two modern languages. Among writers of the first rank one can name very few who were not or are not fluent in at least two. Tolstoy, who spoke Russian, French, and English easily, and other languages and dialects with more difficulty, studied Greek in his forties. ~ John Gardner

They were amazed by each other, stunned silent, all in the circle of cypresses and night wind. The world outside was gone, nothing. Inside that circle the air was unfurling new colors, it was changing to something that cascaded and fountained pure gold and dazzle, and every breath changed them too. ~ Tana French

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy? ~ Hilary Mantel

Do you know what the foundation of mathematics is?" I ask. "The foundation of
mathematics is numbers. If anyone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would
say: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why?"
He splits the claws with a nutcracker and pulls out the meat with curved tweezers.
"Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers.
The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of a small child. But human
consciousness expands. The child discovers a sense of longing, and do you know
what the mathematical expression is for longing?"
He adds cream and several drops of orange juice to the soup.
"The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing
something. And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child
discovers the in between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the
stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads
to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce rational numbers.
And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds
an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers."
He warms French bread in the oven and fills the pepper mill.
"It's a form of madness.' Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be
written down. They force human consciousness out bey ~ Peter Høeg

I loved him, you know,' she said. 'I would have loved him as hard as he'd let me, for the rest of my life. ~ Tana French

Writing is a beast to tame, an energy to transform. Whip that toad into a prince and French kiss it to life. We start at the top but keep looking down, from macro to micro, from what could work to what does - but start with the dream. Nothing is real apart from the clouds, and all clouds pass with life in their wake - some rain thoughts. ~ Chila Woychik

It's true, I'm the youngest, highest-grossing French director. I have a few records, but no one knows or simply doesn't care. That's good, because I like that. Ultimately, I want to keep working, making a lot of movies, and get better at it. It's about finding great scripts and bringing them to life. ~ Louis Leterrier

Lamarck's Impact

So, how could these "favorable variations" occur?
Darwin tried to answer this question from the standpoint of
the primitive understanding of science at that time.
According to the French biologist Chevalier de Lamarck
(1744-1829), who lived before Darwin, living creatures
passed on the traits they acquired during their lifetime to
the next generation. He asserted that these traits, which
accumulated from one generation to another, caused new
species to be formed. For instance, he claimed that
giraffes evolved from antelopes; as they struggled to eat
the leaves of high trees, their necks were extended from
generation to generation.

Darwin also gave similar examples. In his book The
Origin of Species, for instance, he said that some bears
going into water to find food transformed themselves into
whales over time.

However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor
Mendel (1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics,
which flourished in the twentieth century, utterly demolished
the legend that acquired traits were passed on to
subsequent generations. Thus, natural selection fell out of
favor as an evolutionary mechanism. ~ Harun Yahya

French people should be prioritised; clandestine immigrants get 100 per cent refund on healthcare while two-thirds of French people can't afford medical help. Charity begins at home. ~ Marion Marechal-Le Pen

My definition, the definition that I've always believed in, is that esprit de corps means love for one's own military legion - in my case, the United States Marine Corps. It means more than self-preservation, religion, or patriotism. I've also learned that this loyalty to one's corps travels both ways: up and down. ~ Chesty Puller

Bowman, too, had been born in a great city, in the French Hospital in Manhattan, in the burning heat of August and very early in the morning when all geniuses are born, as Pearson once told him. There had been an unbreathing stillness, and near dawn faint, distant thunder. It grew slowly louder, then gusts of cooler air before a tremendous storm broke with lightning and sheets of rain, and when it was over, ~ James Salter

Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts. ~ Maximilien De Robespierre

I 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 Randall

Even then, she still held a secret passion for Mozart. When he died in 1791, her grief made her provoke the people into starting the French Revolution. Stepping up to the guillotine herself, she ordered the executioner to behead her, thereby committing assisted suicide. ~ Yasutaka Tsutsui

I like food too much to go on some crazy diet. French fries are my favorite downfall. ~ Holly Madison

The legislation I introduced was, according to the veterans' organizations, the most comprehensive piece of legislation offered for them in many decades. Sadly, despite the strong support of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and other organizations, my legislation only received fifty-six votes on the floor of the Senate - all of the Democrats, but only two Republicans. We needed sixty votes. It turned out that Republicans loved veterans very much, except when it came to funding their needs. If ~ Bernie Sanders

The French are completely without scruples, energy or valor - the Great War castrated them and left them diminished, whiney, mistaking bickering for debate and shrillness for eloquence, they are a nation in such effete decline that Shickelgrubber, when he finally attacks them, might be dancing with the keys to Paris in his hand after a week or two of puny skirmishing. ~ Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

I'm happy to have a physical part in 'High Tension,' in 'Hereafter,' and in a lot of French movies and Belgian movies. But its not by chance directors choose me for physical parts. I like to do that. I like to tell a story also with the body. It's important, because you can tell a lot of things. ~ Cecile De France

It's French," she said. "They designed it like a zoo - you know, keep 'em in, but give everyone a good look at 'em... ~ Christopher Moore

Somebody, it seemed, gave it out that I loved ladies; and then everybody presented me their ladies (or the ladies presented themselves) to be embraced, that is to have their necks kissed ... The French ladies had a thousand other ways of rendering themselves agreeable by their various attentions and civilities, and their sensible conversation. Tis a delightful people to live with. ~ Benjamin Franklin