The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they’d like to put us to work rebuilding it, and — to add insult to injury — at a profit.

On ne retombe pas en enfance, on n’en sort jamais. Vieux, moi? Qu’est-ce qu’un vieillard sinon un enfant qui a pris de l’ ge ou du vendre ?…

He (Lafcadio) was sitting all alone in a compartment of the train which was carrying him away from Rome, & contemplating–not without satisfaction–his hands in their grey doeskin gloves, as they lay on the rich...

So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, men who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotwe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere...

His tightly fitting jeans were unmistakably French.

Je suis à toi.

There is no good word for stomach; just as there is no good word for girlfriend. Stomach is to girlfriend as belly is to lover, and as abdomen is to consort, and as middle is...

Celui qui se conforme aux règles évite de réfléchir. Si tu raisonnes en restant dans le cadre, tu ne trouveras jamais de solution autre que celles auxquelles tout le monde a déjà pensé. Il faut...

French laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to the religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism.

A cheval sur une tombe et une naissance difficile. Du fond du trou, rêveusement, le fossoyeur applique ses fers. On a le temps de vieillir. L’air est plein de nos cris.

His brown eyes would roam around the various sentimental and artistic bric-a-brac present, and his own banal toiles (the conventionally primitive eyes, sliced guitars, blue nipples and geometrical designs of the day), and with a...

What isn’t clear, isn’t French.

The true structure of the Welsh grammar will be revealed only when we look at sentences slightly more complicated than its basic VSO pattern. Welsh is no different from the rest of the world: it...

The French aren’t birthed; they’re hatched out of eggs. That’s why they make the best omelets.

Présente je vous fuis; absente, je vous trouve;Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit

Mon être ne subsiste que sous un point de vue suprême qui est justement incompatible avec mon point de vue. La perspective dans laquelle je m’évanouis à mes yeux, me restaure, image complète, pour l’œil...

On devient jeune à soixante ans. Malheureusement, c’est trop tard

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...

I come from French Cajun Jewish people.

Before a shoot, I’ll watch what I eat. During the shoot, I watch what I eat. Afterwards, the first thing I do is go have a steak and French fries.

I have been obsessed with seamed stockings my whole life, and I would collect vintage ones that were made in the ’40s and ’50s with the authentic styling of the keyhole, the welt, the reinforced...

Le désir était un crime de la pensée.

It was not the way Curve smelled that Colin liked – not exactly. It was the way the air smelled just as Lindsey began to jog away from him. The smell of perfume left behind....

celebration.

I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist.

We have been expropriated from our own language by television, from our songs by reality TV contests, from our flesh by mass pornography, from our city by the police and from our friends by wage-labor.

Ce n’était pas une vie; on existait, et c’est tout.

They establish distinctions and reserves which I cannot apply to myself, for I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take...

Irene gasped. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?” she hissed. “Have you?”Stuart closed his eyes.”No,” he said. “Au contraire.” It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say...

What’s the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I’ll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for...

My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell,...

Je t’aime tant, je ne peux pas trouver la fin de mon amour pour toi(I love you so thar I can’t find the end of my love for you)

La véritable évolution n’est-elle pas intérieure?C’est en se changeant soi-même que l’on devient heureux, pas en changeant ce qui nous entoure.

Le bonheur dure une seconde. Lorsque l’on se réveille, à l’aube, il y a ne moment agréable, juste avant que la conscience se souvienne et que le coeur se serre.

PISTOL-Say’st thou me so? is that a ton of moys? Come hither, boy: ask me this slave in French What is his name.Boy-Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?French Soldier-Monsieur le Fer.Boy- He says his name is Master...

Tu seras toujours mon ami. Tu auras envie de rire avec moi.

Kilmartin wrote a highly amusing and illuminating account of his experience as a Proust revisionist, which appeared in the first issue of Ben Sonnenberg’s quarterly Grand Street in the autumn of 1981. The essay opened...

If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn’t be worth living.

Détaché de ses amarres, son cœur flottait à la dérive dans la ciel.

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...

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

yes,” and only recently did I learn it’s spelled o-​u-​i and not w-​e-​e.

– Tonton Gabriel, dit Zazie paisiblement, tu m’as pas encore espliqué si tu étais un hormosessuel ou pas, primo, et deuzio où t’avais été pêcher toutes les belles choses en langue forestière que tu dégoisais...

I wonder why I ever bothered with sex, he thought; there’s nothing in this breathing world so gratifying as an artfully placed semicolon.

Je t’inventeraiDes mots insensésQue tu comprendrasJe te parleraiDe ces amants-làQui ont vue deux foisLeurs coeurs s’embraserJe te raconteraiL’histoire de ce roiMort de n’avoir pasPu te rencontrerNe me quitte pasNe me quitte pasNe me quitte pas

Etre pauvre à Paris, c’est être pauvre deux fois.

I’m all self-taught. I never had a teacher. Even for English, and French, and German, I hardly went to school.

Give us being and feeling over having any day.

I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.

The physical shape of Mollies paralyses and contortions fit the pattern of late-nineteenth-century hysteria as well — in particular the phases of “grand hysteria” described by Jean-Martin Charcot, a French physician who became world-famous in...