French Quotes

Very 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 Beart

What's the news of the war?' The doctor twisted the ends of his moustache and said, 'Germany is taking everything, the Italians are playing the fool, the French have run away, the Belgians have been overrun whilst they were looking the other way, the Poles have been charging tanks with cavalry, the Americans have been playing baseball, the British have been drinking tea and adjusting their monocles, the Russians have been sitting on their hands except when voting unanimously to do whatever they are told. Thank God we are out of it. Why don't we turn on the radio? ~ Louis De Bernieres

When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see the world through rose-colored glasses. ~ Edith Piaf

I see myself as universal, not as a German, American, French or whatever, because we all live on this planet. We're all living on the earth. ~ Klaus Nomi

What shall I say of the gallantry with which these Marines have fought! Of the slopes of Hill 142; of the Mares Farm; of the Bois de Belleau and the Village of Bouresches stained with their blood, and not only taken away from the Germans in the full tide of their advance against the French, but held by my boys against counter attacks day after day and night after night. I cannot write of their splendid gallantry without tears coming to my eyes. ~ James Harbord

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador. ~ Agnes Repplier

I went through very emotional things this year, like being in the French Open finals already feeling like you got it and kind of losing it. ~ Martina Hingis

{On to contributions to evolutionary biology of 18th century French scientist, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon}

He was not an evolutionary biologist, yet he was the father of evolutionism. He was the first person to discuss a large number of evolutionary problems, problems that before Buffon had not been raised by anybody.... he brought them to the attention of the scientific world.

Except for Aristotle and Darwin, no other student of organisms [whole animals and plants] has had as far-reaching an influence.

He brought the idea of evolution into the realm of science. He developed a concept of the "unity of type", a precursor of comparative anatomy. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the acceptance of a long-time scale for the history of the earth. He was one of the first to imply that you get inheritance from your parents, in a description based on similarities between elephants and mammoths. And yet, he hindered evolution by his frequent endorsement of the immutability of species. He provided a criterion of species, fertility among members of a species, that was thought impregnable. ~ Ernst W. Mayr

18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available. ~ Bill Bryson

In the Middle Ages, everything bad was the work of the devil, everything good, the work of God. Today, the French see everything in reverse and blame the Germans for it. ~ Jose Rizal

Max,' I said, looking up at him, 'I love the Russian heritage you guys are so willing to share, but I'm not so thrilled with the French.'
'What?' His brows lowered. 'We're not French.'
'Great. So the next time you feel the need to kiss me, keep your tongue out of my mouth! ~ Shannon Delany

There's a little war in progress here. There won't be anything left of the place if it goes on at this rate." (But it's hard to feign innocence if you've eaten the apple, he reflected.) "And it looks to me as if it is going to go on, because the French aren't going to give in, and certainly the Arabs aren't, because they can't. They're fighting with their backs the the wall."

"I thought maybe you meant you expected a new world war," he lied.

"That's the least of my worries. When that comes, we've had it. You can't sit around mooning about Judgement Day. That's just silly. Everybody who ever lived has always had his own private Judgment Day to face anyway, and he still has. As far as that goes, nothing's changed at all. ~ Paul Bowles

His account books reflect a concern with fashion, as shown by periodic visits to a French tailor, and his sartorial elegance is confirmed in portraits. In one painting, he wears a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and gilt-edged lapels, his neck swathed delicately in a ruffled lace jabot. ~ Ron Chernow

Great French design is often about unexpected touches. ~ Candice Olson

When one speaks of sex with midgets, one must speak French. ~ Dennis Vickers

Quebec City is the most European of any city in North America; they speak French all the time. There is a part of town called Old Quebec which is really like being in France. The architecture is just gorgeous, food, shopping. I'd say Quebec City is the most beautiful city in North America I've seen. ~ Sebastian Bach

He was thirty-six years old, and six foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time. ~ Katherine Rundell

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

Connor pockets his cell. "Lily," he says. "If I wanted to date for a last name, I'd have a girl on my arm every single day. I would never be single." He leans forward. "I promise you, that my intentions are pure. And I think it's sweet you're looking out for Rose, but she's more than capable of taking care of herself, which is one of the many reasons why I want to pursue her." "What's another reason?" I test him. He smiles. "I won't have to taxingly explain to her menu items in a real French restaurant." He knows she's fluent? "I won't have to explain financial statements or dividends. I'll be able to discuss anything and everything in the world, and she'll have an answer. ~ Krista Ritchie

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers's Centre Georges Pompidou of 1971-1977 - the true prototype of the modern museum as popular architectural spectacle - wound up costing so much more than planned that the French government solved the shortfall by cutting support for several regional museums. ~ Martin Filler

The French dine to gratify, we to appease appetite," observed John Sanderson. "We demolish dinner, they eat it." The general misconception back home was that French food was highly seasoned, but not at all, wrote James Fenimore Cooper. The genius in French cookery was "in blending flavors and in arranging compounds in such a manner as to produce ... the lightest and most agreeable food." The charm of a French dinner, like so much in French life, was the "effect. ~ David McCullough

She was a great and insatiable reader, surprisingly well acquainted with the classics of literature, and unexpectedly lavish in the purchase of books. Her neighbours never forgot to mention, in describing her, the awe-inspiring fact that she 'took in the English Times and the Saturday Review, and read every word of them,' but it was hinted that the bookshelves that her own capable hands had put up in her bedroom held a large proportion of works of fiction of a startlingly advanced kind, 'and,' it was generally added in tones of mystery, 'many of them French. ~ Edith Somerville

But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans. ~ William Peter Blatty

So you're met Finn. He's a dash, isn't he? If I weren't older than dirt and ugly as sin, I'd climb that like a French alp. ~ Kate Quinn

I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself 'culture' a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm in love with my new best friend. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Fair play is an English word. It is not a French word, and it has been copied all over the world. Unfortunately, it does not function any more here. ~ Arsene Wenger

The light was crude. It made Artaud's eyes shrink into darkness, as they are deep-set. This brought into relief the intensity of his gestures. He looked tormented. His hair, rather long, fell at times over his forehead. He has the actor's nimbleness and quickness of gestures. His face is lean, as if ravaged by fevers. His eyes do not seem to see the people. They are the eyes of a visionary. His hands are long, long-fingered.
Beside him Allendy looks earthy, heavy, gray. He sits at the desk, massive, brooding. Artaud steps out on the platform, and begins to talk about " The Theatre and the Plague."
He asked me to sit in the front row. It seems to me that all he is asking for is intensity, a more heightened form of feeling and living. Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theater came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself? But then, imperceptibly almost, he let go of the thread we were following and began to act out dying by plague. No one quite knew when it began. To illustrate his conference, he was acting out an agony. "La Peste" in French is so much more terrible than "The Plague" in English. But no word could describe what Artaud acted out on the platform of the Sorbonne. He forgot about his conference, the theatre, his ideas, Dr. Allendy sitting there, the public, the young students, his wife, professors, and directors.
His face was ~ Anais Nin

Annoyance has made me bilingual. ~ Gayle Forman

My books are a subject of much discussion. They pour from shelves onto tables, chairs and the floor, and Chaz observes that I haven't read many of them and I never will. You just never know. One day I may - need is the word I use - to read Finnegans Wake, the Icelandic sagas, Churchill's history of the Second World War, the complete Tintin in French, 47 novels by Simenon, and By Love Possessed. ~ Roger Ebert

The 1789 Revolution had given the French a political script of unequalled drama. For the better part of the following century the temptation to reenact the play was irresistible. ~ Niall Ferguson

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 Jelloun

The sign above the door was written in French. It read: ARRÊTE ! C'EST ICI L'EMPIRE DE LA MORT.
"That means," he explained to Gini, "'Stop! It is here the Empire of Death. ~ Paul Aertker

Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced - if not actually defrocked - priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep - all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion - and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony. ~ Diana Gabaldon

See that guy over there?" I nod toward a man in jean shorts and a Budweiser T-shirt. "Am I that obvious?"
St. Clair squints at him. "Obviously what? Balding? Overweight? Tasteless?"
"American."
He sighs melodramtically. "Honestly, Anna. You must get over this."
"I just don't want to offend anyone. I hear they offend easily."
"You're not offending anyone except me right now."
"What about her?" I point to a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and a knit top with stars and stripes on it.She has a camera strapped to her belt and is arguing with a man in a bucket hat. Her husband,I suppose.
"Completely offensive."
"I mean,am I as obvious as her?"
"Considering she's wearing the American flag, I'd venture a no on that one." He bites his thumbnail. "Listen.I think I have a solution to your problem, but you'll have to wait for it. Just promise you'll stop asking me to compare you to fifty-year-old women,and I'll take care of everything."
"How? With what? A French passport?"
He snorts. "I didn't say I'd make you French." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. "Deal?"
"Deal," I say uncomfortably. I don't care for surprises. "But it better be good."
"Oh,it's good." And St. Clair looks so smug that I'm about to call him on it, when I realize I can't see our school anymore.
I don't believe it.He's completely distracted me. ~ Stephanie Perkins

I'm very drawn to Eastern Europe, so I like a Hungarian writer who wrote in French called Emil Cioran; he was always good for giving me such a stir. ~ Dylan Moran

Yeah. I know. How stupid is it to French kiss a vampire and not expect sharp teeth? ~ Katie MacAlister

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

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

Here: an exercise in choice. Your choice. One of these tales is true.
She lived through the war. In 1959 she came to America. She now lives in a condo in Miami, a tiny French woman with white hair, with a daughter and a grand-daughter. She keeps herself to herself and smiles rarely, as if the weight of memory keeps her from finding joy.
Or that's a lie. Actually the Gestapo picked her up during a border crossing in 1943, and they left her in a meadow. First she dug her own grave, then a single bullet to the back of the skull.
Her last thought, before that bullet, was that she was four months' pregnant, and that if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.
There is an old woman in Miami who wakes, confused, from a dream of the wind blowing the wildflowers in a meadow.
There are bones untouched beneath the warm French earth which dream of a daughter's wedding. Good wine is drunk. The only tears shed are happy ones. ~ Neil Gaiman

From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance. ~ Charles Tilly

just a short trip to any French territory in the Pacific is enough to convince even the most casual observer that the French are among the most self-serving, manipulative, trivial-minded, obnoxious, cynical, and corrupting nations on the face of the earth. ~ Paul Theroux

You can't help noticing that since abandoning its faith in the unseen world Europe seems also to have lost its faith in the seen one. Consider this poll taken in 2002 for the first anniversary of September 11: 61 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about the future, as opposed to 43 percent of Canadians, 42 percent of Britons, 29 percent of the French, 23 percent of Russians, and 15 percent of Germans. I wouldn't reckon those numbers will get any cheerier over the years. ~ Mark Steyn

Mussolini is quite humiliated because our troops have not moved a step forward. Even today they have not succeeded in advancing and have halted in front of the first French fortification which put up some resistance. ~ Galeazzo Ciano

I'm not going to lie: There are times I play mind tricks on myself, like that the French fries are poison. With desserts, I'll let myself have just one bite, but I'll look like a freak when I'm eating it, like when I did Duncan Hines commercials as a kid, just savoring every morsel. ~ Fergie

This papal document - which has not yet been repudiated by the Catholic Church - was the basis for the Christian justification of colonialism and the building of competitive Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German, and other Euro-Christian empires that spanned the world.13 It was the genocide card that was given to every white Christian nation. ~ Brian D. McLaren

There's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses. ~ Joely Richardson

Tjaden comes back. He is still worked up and joins in the debate again straight away by asking how a war starts in the first place. 'Usually when one country insults another one badly,' answers Kropp, a little patronizingly. But Tjaden isn't going to be put off. 'A country? I don't get it. A German mountain can't insult a French mountain, or a river, or a forest, or a cornfield. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

Did you get me that movie about Genghis Khan?
'It's in the Netflix queue, but that's not the surprise. You don't need to worry, it'll be something good. I just don't want you to feel depressed about going home.'
Oh, I won't. But it would be cool to have a stream like this in the backyard. Can you make one?
'Ummm... no.'
I figured. Can't blame a hound for trying.
Oberon was indeed surprised when we got back home to Tempe. Hal had made the arrangements for me and Oberon perked up as soon as we were dropped off by the shuttle from the car rental company.
'Hey, smells like someone's in my territory,' he said.
'Nobody could be here without my permission, you know that.'
'Flidais did it.'
'That isn't Flidais you smell, believe me.'
I opened the front door, and Oberon immediately ran to the kitchen window that gazed upon the backyard. He barked joyously when he saw what was waiting for him there.
'French poodles! All black and curly with poofy little tails!'
'And every one of them in heat.'
'Oh, WOW! Thanks Atticus! I can't wait to sniff their asses!'
He bounded over to the door and pawed at it because the doggie door was closed to prevent the poodles from entering.
'You earned it, buddy. Hold on, get down off the door so I can open it for you, and be careful, don't hurt any of them.'
I opened the door, expecting him to bolt through it and dive into his own personal canine harem, but instead he took one ~ Kevin Hearne

At Oxford University, I studied languages so I could read the great novels as they were originally written. I took what in the United States would be a double major in Russian and French, but I have to admit that the pressure of getting through so many books spoiled reading for me. ~ Kate Beckinsale

I know what you want. One month after the ascension of Philippe the Gullible, M. Laclos found in a gutter, deceased. Blamed on a traffic accident. Two months after, King Philippe found in a gutter, deceased - it really is a bad stretch of road. Philippe's heirs and assigns having coincidentally expired, end of the monarchy, reign of M.Danton. ~ Hilary Mantel

And all of this leaves me wondering if this dream of mine-that out there, somewhere, hiding, there exists a guy who is cultured and calm, and smiley and faithful, who want´s to escape the rat-race with me and, apparently like the French, wear wellies and make cheese...Well, I wonder if it can possibly exist. I don´t want much...just someone who would flat on his stomach next to me in the garden watching ants carrying crumbs through the jungle of blades of grass. I wonder if that can ever exist, anywhere, for anyone. ~ Nick Alexander

He was like a huge smug albatross waddling around my desk, squawking vacuously and crapping all over my paperwork. ~ Tana French

I think British men build up the idea of us French girls having some magic extra sex appeal so much, they lose their heads. I can't really understand the whole thing - but it makes me laugh. It's such a cliche to think all French girls are well dressed, elegant, sophisticated and sexy. Some are utter slobs, I promise you that. ~ Eva Green

He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little Poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down. ~ John Steinbeck

Never underestimate the power of helplessness! ~ Marilyn French

In the hands of a master, light and shade is one of the great qualities of art. ~ John French Sloan

Fear and desire for pleasure. Aggressiveness comes out of fear, predominantly, and sexuality predominantly out of the other. But they mix in the middle. Anyway, both of these impulses can destroy order, which comes out of both drives, and which is another human need I haven't yet fit into my scheme. So both have to be controlled. But in fact, despite religious commands to the contrary, aggressiveness has never really been condemned. It's been exalted, from the Bible through Homer and Virgil right down to Humbert Hemingway. Have you ever heard of a John Wayne movie being censored? did you ever see them take war books off the bookstands? They leave the genitals off Barbie and Ken, but they manufacture every kind of war toy. Because sex is more threatening to us than aggression. There have been strict rules about sex since the beginning of written rules, and even before, if we can believe myth. I think that's because it's in sex that men feel most vulnerable. In war they can hype themselves up, or they have a weapon. Sex means being literally naked and exposing your feelings. And that's more terrifying to most men than the risk of dying while fighting a bear or a soldier. Look at the rules! You can have sex if you're married, and you have to marry a person of the opposite gender, the same color and religion, an age close to your own, of the right social and economic background, even the right height, for God's sake, or else everybody gets up in arms, they disinherit you or threa ~ Marilyn French

Much would happen, but all would be playacting; a noisy, romantic play with a few spots of blood on the comic costumes. This was a country of arrangements, with none of that frenzy of the French; ~ Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Dale's father edited an English-language newspaper in Bombay and Dale always shouted "Aiee!" when he was in pain. It had amazed me greatly when I first heard him stubbing his toe against the foot of the bed in the dormitory, since I had never imagined that expressions of pain could vary. I had thought "Ouch!" and "Ow!" were the same all over the world. I had suffered a hot and bothered exchange in my first French lesson, for example, when I was told that the French for "Oh!" was "Ah!"
"Then how do they say 'Oh,' sir?"
"They say 'Ah.'"
"Well then, how do they say 'Ah'?"
"Don't be stupid, Fry."
I had sulked for the rest of the lesson. ~ Stephen Fry

I know of no other place that is so fascinating yet so frustrating, so aware of the world and its own place within it but at the same time utterly insular. A country touched by nostalgia, with a past so great - so marked by brilliance and achievement - that French people today seem both enriched and burdened by it. France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship. ~ Sarah Turnbull

The only french sentence he could call to mind was a passage which had caused him some trouble in class the previous day. So far as he had been able to judge the translation was: 'the gentleman who wears one green hat approaches himself all of a sudden. ~ Anthony Buckeridge

Then I took 8 years of French Horn, first jazz, and then classical. ~ Jim Coleman

To tell about him, one should be French, because only the people of that nation manage to explain to others what they don't understand themselves. ~ Nikolai Leskov

They're from France, Ruby said, Vogue magazine. They only speak French except for fuck you. ~ Tom Spanbauer

I feel Italian, but I also feel French," she said. "Italy is deeper. France is strong, but it's after." Actually, one of the surprises about meeting [Valeria Bruni Tedeschi] is how Italian she seems. Though she has no trace of an Italian accent when speaking French - and says that, in Italian, she shows signs of having lived in France - she sounds Italian when speaking English. There is no suggestion of French at all. ~ Mick LaSalle

OSS 117 and maybe Un Balcon Sur La Mer directed by Nicole Garcia. It's a typical French movie with typical French themes with French actors, a French director ... ~ Jean Dujardin

I happen to have been born a Cartesian. The French education is based on a sequence of strict logic. You carry it with you. ~ Marcel Duchamp

Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of
the air! ~ Thomas Carlyle

But communes are a good idea. People criticize communes because they don't last, but why in hell, will you tell me, should they last? Why does an order have to become a permanent order? Maybe we should live one way for some years, then try another. ~ Marilyn French

How could she have been so ungrateful? She envied the French singer who regretted nothing. She regretted all. ~ Lori Lansens

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life! ~ Tatiana De Rosnay

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity. ~ Horace Walpole

We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude. ~ Douglas Coupland

Little Miss Bauer sat in her tower, eating a burger and fries. Along came a spider who sat down beside her and said "I prefer zee French flies. ~ Julia Durango

One man who could understand it very well was the architect of these stop-gap measures: General the Viscount Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. A big burly man of 53, Lord Gort was no strategist - he was happy to follow the French lead on such matters - but he had certain soldierly virtues that came in handy at a time like this. He was a great fighter - had won the Victoria Cross storming the Hindenburg Line in 1918 - and he was completely unflappable. ~ Walter Lord

I never knew, not then, not now, whether Cassie thought she had hung up, or whether she wanted to hurt me, or whether she wanted to give me one last gift, one last night listening to her breathe. ~ Tana French

They are our brothers, these freedom fighters ... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong. ~ Ronald Reagan

I have always said the French team is the most important thing that has happened to me. I thought deeply about it and I want to play for France again. ~ Zinedine Zidane

Francophones are never impressed that anyone else can speak French. ~ David Foster Wallace

Some people should never meet. ~ Tana French

The French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their natural history. ~ Gilbert White

As for the role of France and Germany: French politics is often more self-confident then German politics due to the catastrophe in the first half of the last century. If Berlin and Paris don't agree, then it is difficult to make progress in Europe. ~ Wolfgang Schauble

There is apparently an easy test to distinguish good schoolteachers from poor ones; ask them what they teach. Poor ones reply, 'I teach French,' or 'I teach physics' or whatever their subject is. Good ones say, 'I teach children.' The teacher here would have fallen into the second group: he taught knowledge to people. Or better, he imparted knowledge, meaning he passed over so that the people who learned from him knew the lessons for themselves. ~ Chris Green

You don't lose much when the landlord's house burns down. Another landlord will always turn up, unless it's the same one, German or French, English or Chinese, to collect the rent ... In marks or francs? What difference does it make, seeing you've got to pay ... ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

The wave of pure outrage blindsided me. I shouldn't be here, I thought. This is utterly fucked up. I should have been sitting in a garden down the road, barefoot with a drink in my hand, swapping the day's work stories with Peter and Jamie. I had never thought about this before, and it almost knocked me over: all the things we should have had. We should have stayed up all night together studying and stressing out before exams, Peter and I should have argued over who got to bring Jamie to our first dance and slagged her about how she looked in her dress. We should have come weaving home together, singing and laughing and inconsiderate, after drunken college nights. We could have shared a flat, taken off Interrailing around Europe, gone arm-in-arm through dodgy fashion phases and low-rent gigs and high-drama love affairs. Two of us might have been married by now, given the other one a godchild. I had been robbed blind. ~ Tana French

The scientific and societal achievements of the modern age are undisputable. But after the French Revolution, modernity increasingly emancipated itself from Christian roots, thereby becoming rootless itself. ~ Walter Kasper

I speak English, so I am no longer cute. My tongue itches for French. ~ Anna Held

This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits} ~ John Adams

Not many men have both good fortune and good sense. ~ Marilyn French

NOMISMA, MEANING 'COIN', was used by both Greeks and Romans. Our own word 'money' derives, via the French monnaie, from the Latin moneta, meaning the mint, where coins are struck. (In early Rome the mint was situated on the Capitoline Hill in the temple of Juno Moneta.) ~ Norman Davies

Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The amused heat in Lucien eyes scorched her. In that moment she wasn't ordinary Sophie Black, builder's PA and invisible wife. She was sexy and sophisticated Ms. Black, able to stop Viking sex-gods in their tracks with just a few little words. She noticed the way Lucien's throat worked as he swallowed before he spoke.
You start in the morning. Nine o' clock sharp. Don't be late, Ms. Black. ~ Kitty French

I said, "Je parle français." Indira gave me a weird look. Or a look that said I was weird. Whichever. The point is, I don't really speak French, but it's a useful phrase for confusing people you don't wish to speak with. However, it's apparently more useful in Europe, where no one enjoys speaking to the French. ~ Tucker Elliot

New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence of the French, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere. ~ Constance Baker Motley

In France, it's always about life, normal life. We always stick with these realistic things. So when French people are dreaming about American movies, they go and see the thrillers, and Westerns, and science fiction, huge entertaining movies. ~ Berenice Bejo

I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down. ~ Tana French

They tell a story, probably not true, about a cap trooper who was sight-seeing in Paris. He visited Les Invalides, looked down at Napoleon's coffin, and said to a French guard there: "Who's he?"
The Frenchman was properly scandalized. "Monsieur does not know? This is the tomb of Napoleon! Napoleon Bonaparte! The greatest soldier who ever lived!"
The cap trooper thought about it. Then he asked, "So? Where were his drops? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I was really into old musicals. When I was seven or eight, my mum and dad would be like, 'How does she know who Ginger Rogers is?' Then, one weekend, Josephine Baker popped up in a French film called 'Zouzou,' and I was so stunned because she looked like me. ~ Cush Jumbo

Even French pilferage has not relegated Italian culinary genius to the darker corners of gastronomy. Marie de' Medici brought Italian cookery to France, where Gallic duplicity quickly undermined the integrity of good ingredients with unctuous sauces. The French will always confuse egregious decorative effects with creative integrity. They have a genius for appearances. Trompe l'oeil will do for a Frenchman, but not for an Italian. ~ Roland Delicio