The West is a civilization that has survived all the prophecies of its collapse with a singular stratagem. Just as the bourgeoisie had to deny itself as a class in order to permit the bourgeoisification...

The French report did not indicate any of these things,

La vie c’est comme la bicyclette : quand on arrête de pédaler on tombe.

Ne cherche jamais l’amour, laisse que celui-ci te cherche. Rappelle toi qu’on est 7 milliards

…As the evening wore on (the supper did not end until seven in the morning), the public were admitted to watch the festivities from the balustrade, and were offered biscuits and refreshments to keep them...

If looks could kill” too literally. The French have a word for sexy murderesses. Well, they probably have such a word, but since I don’t speak French, I can’t tell you what it is.

Le pays est devenue un territoire où les mathématiques ressemblent un jeu d’enfants: les actifs additionnent et les retraités soustraient.

I don’t know what it is about the french language, it seems to be scared of coming out of the mouth so it comes out the nose instead.

I’m off to make war, so that you may have love.

The French have made conversation their claim to civilisation.

Il ne faut pas me dire deux fois les choses ; il ne faut pas me les dire deux fois.

When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake,...

For years, “Sorry, I don’t speak French” has been the reflexive response of English-speaking Canadians to a request, a comment, or a greeting in the other official language. Part apology, part defiance, it is a...

I wish I could say he was a French professor, a French chef, or even a bilingual tutor, but I can’t. He worked in a factory and spent his summer evenings at a reenactment village...

It is time to buddle (scrub in water) all that is not illutile (unwash-awayable). Baudelaire said that humans were deluded if they thought they could wash away all their spots with vile tears, but Baudelaire...

But genius, and even great talent, springs less from seeds of intellect and social refinement superior to those of other people than from the faculty of transforming and transposing them. To heat a liquid with...

On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing,...

Frères, qui meurt ici meurt dans le rayonnement de l’avenir, et nous entrons dans une tombe toute pénétrée d’aurore.

Often, we melt into our ecstasies as though they were jams, as though we were sinking into syrupy bowls of gooseberries, of raspberries, of bilberries.

For Sayonara, literally translated, ‘Since it must be so,’ of all the good-bys I have heard is the most beautiful. Unlike the Auf Wiedershens and Au revoirs, it does not try to cheat itself by...

Our own dimension was coded ID-11 and was the only League member with diphtheria, David Hasselhoff and the French, which amused the rest of the multiverse no end.

Cherchez la femme, Bucky. Remember that.

I have hunger.” That’s what real French people say. I think it’s neat how French people have hunger, but they aren’t hungry like Americans are. I mean, it’s a lot easier to try not to...

We are not our own light.

Je pense à Dora Bruder. Je me dis que sa fugue n’était pas aussi simple que la mienne une vingtaine d’années plus tard, dans un monde redevenu inoffensif. Cette ville de décembre 1941, son couvre-feu,...

We are saddened by the statements of the French prime minister and of President (Jacques) Chirac.

Les hommes sensibles préfèrent sortir le soir au matin, la nuit au jour, et la beauté des femmes mûres à celle des jeunes filles.

As I don’t know french language I just kiss french girls the way French’s do❤

The revolution of 1789 had no other goal than absolute access to the writing of legal statutes and the systematic destruction of customary institutions. It resulted in a state of permanent revolution because the mobility...

En la forest de Longue Attentechevauchant par divers sentiersm’en voys, ceste année présenteoù voyage de Desiriers.Devant sont aller mes fourrierspour appareiller mon logisen la Cité de Destinée.Et pout mon cœur et moy ont prisl’ostellerie de...

Etre dans le vent, c’est avoir le destin des feuilles mortes.

I said I kicked a French chicken in the stomach once.” “Huh?” “It said, ‘Oeuf.'” “What is that?” “It’s a joke. Do you want to hear another, or have you already had un oeuf?

There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.

You sir, are a thief.

We were a family who had come from nothing and now we had respect from French people of all sorts.

(From Boulez, an authorized biography by Joan Peyser)At the chapel door he [a priest associated with a school Boulez attended] asked me if what he had been told was true: that Boulez no longer believed...

Je t’admire, dit le petit prince, en haussant un peu les épaules, mais en quoi cela peut-il bien t’intéresser?

Je ne peux être juste pour les livres qui traitent de la femme en tant que femme… Mon idée c’est que tous, aussi bien hommes que femmes, qui que nous sayons, nous devons être considérés...

Ceux qui revent eveilles ont conscience de 1000 choses qui echapent a ceux qui ne revent qu’endormis.The one who has day dream are aware of 1000 things that the one who dreams only when he...

ALPHA-60: Your name is written “Ivan Johnson,” but it is pronounced “Lemmy Caution,” Secret Agent Zero Zero Three of the Outlands. You are a threat to the security of Alphaville.CAUTION: I refuse to become what...

I wished to see storms only on those coasts where they raged with most violence…

One day I have a revelation. ‘I think we’re actually quite compatible,’ I tell him. ‘You’re irritable, and I’m irritating.

Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie, Lorsque nous etions si jeunes tous deux, Et que nous n’avions au coeur d’autre envie Que d’etre bien mis et d’etre amoureux, Lorsqu’en ajoutant votre age a mon age, Nous...

Il s’avança un fauteuil, s’installa entre sa femme et sa mère et, tandis que Dawn parlait, il lui prit la main. Il y a cent façons de prendre la main de quelqu’un. Selon que c’est...

I want to be adopted by the French. I want to go to live in Paris.

J’aurais dû traverser l’existence avec ce privilège que donne la beauté, de pouvoir prendre les hommes et les jeter. Au lieu de quoi c’étaient eux qui m’abandonnaient ou mouraient. Ou bien se mariaient.

That’s the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn’t really matter if it’s short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters...

C’est un plaisir que de supputer, subodorer, côtoyer le mystère qui se tramait dans les quartiers, villages et ruelles de Montréal, et de se demander comment tout ça allait finir. J’avais confiance. J’avais confiance en...

Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered...

French are what they are without excusing themselves to be.