I found Americans arrogant, Germans rude, Britishers selfish, Frenchs desperate, Chinese worried and my own nation stupid.

(…) il fallait séparer nos souffles, s’écarter, s’espacer, se lever, se dédoubler, et c’est toujours autant de perdu. Quand on a deux corps, il vient des moments où l’on est à moitié.- Est-ce que je...

Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically...

I think we are wise, we English speakers, to savor accents. They teach us things about our own tongue.

Je me rends parfaitement compte du desagreable effet que produit sur la majorite de l’humanité, tout ce qui se rapporte, même au plus faible dègré, á des calculs ou raisonnements mathematiques.I am well aware of...

Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say – no detail spared in the quest for perfection.

People pretend not to like grapes when the vines are too high for them to reach.

When you set a play in the French Quarter in New Orleans, it’s hard not to acknowledge the whole African-American, French, white mixing of races. That’s what the French Quarter is: it’s a Creole community.

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...

Người Việt Nam đẻ ra là tự động biết sợ ma, sợ mơ thấy lửa, sợ gò má cao, sợ nốt ruồi ở tuyến lệ, sợ ăn thịt chó đầu tháng, sợ ăn thịt vịt...

Reticence was clearly a national characteristic, even if the other person spoke French.

The unknown kidnappers left the three French journalists and abducted the half French, half Algerian journalist and took him to an unknown place.

Il est plus facile d’être un voyageur ou un savant que d’être un ami, un amant. Plus aisé d’aimer les hommes vaguement que d’aimer à la perfection un seul être imparfait.

But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [… N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get...

Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.

The beam of light flashed across her own face and she thought, Yes, me, Khady Demba, still happy to utter her name silently and to sense its apt harmony with the precise, satisfying image she...

I never thought I could win the French Open.

I should point out, creating one’s own style, as much as is required to illustrate one of the aspects, the golden seam of language, involves beginning again at once, in a different manner, adopting the...

Les rêves sont seuls les réalités de la vie.

When you are old, at evening candle-lit beside the fire bending to your wool,read out my verse and murmur, “Ronsard writ this praise for me when I was beautiful.”And not a maid but, at the...

Vivre est une maladie, dont le sommeil nous soulage toutes les seize heures ; c’est un palliatif : la mort est le remède.

That’s different. The French know that the English are superior to them and they’re appropriate about it. The Eastern Europeans on the other hand have no sense of place. All that communism has them thinking...

Il ne faut pas avoir peur de regarder les choses en face. La vie est le résultat de la malpropreté. Si la nature avait été bien tenue, la vie ne serait jamais apparue. La vie...

The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine

…because he knew that for other people their own social obligations took precedence of the death of afriend, and could put himself in her place by dint of his instinctivepoliteness.

WARMING UP TO the crèche turned out to be easy. Warming up to the other mothers there isn’t. I’m aware that Anglo-American-style instant bonding between women doesn’t happen in France. I’ve heard that female friendships...

Vénérons le chien. Le chien (quel drôle de bête!), a sa sueur sur sa langue et son sourire dans sa queue.

Chaque fois que je levais les yeux je voyais mon petit ami complètement gaga parce que j’étais une reine de beauté à la noix! T’étais un vrai gosse! Il a fallu que tu me transformes...

Le coeur humain, beau comme un sismographe.

Delight is délice, délit is a misdemeanour”Well, it’s bloody close…”Well, they often are….

Il semble, encore ajourd’hui, qu’elle n’aurait pu s’épanouir ailleurs que dans ce paysage étrange et fabuleux, hanté par les fantômes, mais protégé par les fées

Gay-Lussac was quick, lively, ingenious and profound, with great activity of mind and great facility of manipulation. I should place him at the head of all the living chemists in France.

The French expression ‘cul-de-sac’ describes what the Baudelaire orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word...

Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing–turn your toes out when you walk—And remember who you are!

I transform “Work” in its analytic meaning (the Work of Mourning, the Dream-Work) into the real “Work” – of writing.) for: the “Work” by which (it is said) we emerge from the great crises (love,...

Quel tempérament de feu a cette fille-là!

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...

On ne se souvient pas des jours, on se souvient des instants.

This medical view of an ideal male who was insulated from pathogens was inextricably bound up with a parallel discourse about the maintenance of strong ego boundaries, a psychic investment in one’s bodily peripheries that...

L’amour, bande de connards ! A quoi ça rime, sinon, de vivre ?

He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex.

Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French.

Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman...

I beg your pardon, sir, said the Frenchman. I am not a coloniser.Well, let’s talk Algeria then. Let’s talk about your culture and your celebrated writers.

Flambé – done beside a table covered in crisp starched linen in a French restaurant: a method to burn food and money simultaneously.

les points d’alimentationPowerpointsthat discuss power pointsand targets of softtargets Sweet Açaífell in love with GrapefruitPaint my skin with honeyactivate the points of powerpowerpointsque discuterles points d’alimentationet les objectifs de mouobjectifsacai douxtombé en amour avecpamplemoussePeindre ma...

Quand tu es dépendant des autres pour le moindre geste, il faut être pote avec la grande aiguille de l’horloge. La patience est un art qui s’apprend patiemment.

I thought the French were supposed to be so polite,” said Harriet indignantly.Maybe it can’t be proven statistically, but it’s a safe bet that any given American on his or her first trip to France...

En français.

You’re as strong as the Pont Neuf. You’ll live to bury us all!