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French Quotes

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French Quotes

“French parents don’t just think these separations are good for parents. They also genuinely believe that they’re important for kids, who must understand that their parents have their own pleasures. “Thus the child understands that he is not the center of the world, and this is essential for his development,” the French parenting guide Votre Enfant explains.”

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Book:Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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“The French don’t valorize a pregnant woman’s anxiety. Instead, in the word cloud of French pregnancy, terms like serenity, balance, and Zen keep popping up. Mothers-to-be are supposed to signal their competence by showing how calm they are and by making it clear that they still experience pleasure. This small shift in emphasis makes a big difference.”

PleasureBalanceCalmZenWomanPregnantSerenityCompetenceFrench
Book:Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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“It’s not enough for French mothers to have pleasures and interests apart from their children. They also want their kids to know about these things. They believe it’s burdensome for a child to feel that she’s the sole source of her mother’s happiness and satisfaction. (A Parisian mother I know told me she was going back to work partly for her daughter’s sake.)”

ChildrenKidsHappinessInterestWorkPleasureSatisfactionFrench
Book:Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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“What would you do if you could snap your fingers and make it all different?" Melody didn't even hesitate. "Open my own place. French-inspired, most likely, with all those amazing pastries I fell in love with in Paris. Maybe light lunch fare. Hearty bread, the way it's supposed to be done- heirloom wheat baguettes baked bien cuit, that point just before burnt where the crust gets rich and caramelly.”

DreamPassionBreadFrenchPastries
Book:Brunch at Bittersweet Café
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“It reminded Sade of some of the aristocrats, who had treated imprisonment as a bad joke, a mild annoyance that would be made right before any real damage was done. They had kept their dignity right up to the moment when the drum roll stopped and the blade fell. Then, too late, they screamed like children. As I would have done. The thought popped unwelcome into his head.”

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Book:Doctor Who: The Man in the Velvet Mask
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“Adieu, Camille, retourne à ton couvent, et lorsqu’on te fera de ces récits hideux qui t’ont empoisonnée, réponds ce que je vais te dire : Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux et lâches, méprisables et sensuels ; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées ; le monde n’est qu’un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange ; mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c’est l’union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux. On est souvent trompé en amour, souvent blessé et souvent malheureux ; mais on aime, et quand on est sur le bord de sa tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière, et on se dit : J’ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelques fois, mais j’ai aimé. C’est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui.”

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Book:On ne badine pas avec l'amour
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“Mine was the kind of apartment filled with scented candles, where every piece of furniture has been carefully selected to be camera-ready at all times, in case a representative of the taste police from an interiors magazine were to show up unannounced; I always wanted to get top marks.”

HomeWomenPrideFemaleApartmentFrenchGood TasteChicHousekeepingPressure To Succeed
Book:The Paris Trilogy: a Life in Three Stories
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“An old walrus-faced waiter attended to me; he had the knack of pouring the coffee and the hot milk from two jugs, held high in the air, and I found this entrancing, as if he were a child's magician. One day he said to me - he had some English - "Why are you sad?" "I'm not sad," I said, and began to cry. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous. "You should not be sad," he said, gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes. "It must be the love. But you are young and pretty, you will have time to be sad later." The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. This is why they have bidets. "It is criminal, the love," he said, patting my shoulder. "But none is worse.”

LoveSadnessFrench
Book:The Blind Assassin
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“You know what politique is? It is the French word for a lie. Kdoub! Politique! When you hear the French say: our politique, you know they mean: our lies. And when you hear the Moslems, the Friends of Independence, say: our politique, you know they mean: our lies. All lies are sins. And so, which displeases Allah more, a lie told by a Nazarene, who doesn’t know the true faith from the false, or a lie told by a Moslem, who does?”

TruthPoliticsLiesColonialismFrenchSinsMoroccoPolitiqueNazareneFrench MoroccoMoslemFrench Colonialism
Book:The Spider's House
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“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 any bravado 'Till we meet again,' any sedative to postpone the pain of separation. It does not evade the issue like the sturdy blinking Farewell. Farewell is a father's good-by. It is - 'Go out in the world and do well, my son.' It is encouragement and admonition. It is hope and faith. But it passes over the significance of the moment; of parting it says nothing. It hides its emotion. It says too little. While Good-by ('God be with you') and Adios say too much. They try to bridge the distance, almost to deny it. Good-by is a prayer, a ringing cry. 'You must not go - I cannot bear to have you go! But you shall not go alone, unwatched. God will be with you. God's hand will over you' and even - underneath, hidden, but it is there, incorrigible - 'I will be with you; I will watch you - always.' It is a mother's good-by. But Sayonara says neither too much nor too little. It is a simple acceptance of fact. All understanding of life lies in its limits. All emotion, smoldering, is banked up behind it. But it says nothing. It is really the unspoken good-by, the pressure of a hand, 'Sayonara.”

GodMotherFatherEmotionBeautyFarewellFrenchSpanishEnglishJapaneseGermanGoodbyes
Book:NORTH TO THE ORIENT
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“Все французы-мужчины знают что нужно стать цивилизованным между восемнадцатью и двадцатью тремя и что цивилизация приходит к вам через отношения с женщинами постарше, через революцию, через военную дисциплину, через побег откуда-нибудь или через подчинение кому-нибудь, после чего вы стали цивилизованным и жизнь идет как надо на латинский лад, жизнь умиротворяющая и интригующая, вот теперь жизнь цивилизованна, логична и модна короче говоря жизнь как жизнь.”

LifeCivilizationLogicFrench
Book:Paris France
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“ANDROMAQUE [Mon fils] ne sera pas lâche. Mais je lui aurai coupé l’index de la main droite. HECTOR Si toutes les mères coupent l’index droit de leur fils, les armées de l’univers se feront la guerre sans index... Et si elles lui coupent la jambe droite, les armées seront unijambistes... Et si elles lui crèvent les yeux, les armées seront aveugles, mais il y aura des armées, et dans la mêlée elles se chercheront le défaut de l’aine, ou la gorge, à tâtons... ANDROMAQUE Je le tuerai plutôt. HECTOR Voilà la vraie solution maternelle des guerres.”

WarHuman NatureFrenchMothers And SonsTrojan War
Book:La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu
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“Оказалось, что я не способен жить ради самого себя, а ради кого еще я мог бы жить? Человечество меня не интересовало, более того, внушало мне отвращение, я вовсе не считал всех людей братьями, особенно если рассматривать достаточно узкий фрагмент человечества, состоящий, например, из моих соотечественников или бывших коллег. При этом, как ни досадно, я вынужден был признать этих людей себе подобными, и именно это сходство и побуждало меня избегать их; хорошо бы мне найти женщину, это было бы классическим и проверенным решением вопроса, женщина, разумеется, тоже человек, но все же она являет собой несколько иной тип человека и привносит в жизнь легкий аромат экзотики.”

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Book:Soumission
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“Quelle chimère est-ce donc que l’homme ? Quelle nouveauté, quel monstre, quel chaos, quel sujet de contradiction, quel prodige ! Juge de toutes choses, imbécile ver de terre, dépositaire du vrai, cloaque d’incertitude et d’erreur: gloire et rebut de l’univers.” “What a chimera is man! what a confused chaos! what a subject of contradiction! a professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth! the great depository and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty! the glory and the scandal of the universe!” -excerpt from note 434”

LifePhilosophyTruthHumanityUniverseKnowledgeSocietyTheologyParadoxFrench
Book:"Pensées", Grandeur Et Misère De L'homme, Édition Posthume, 1670, Blaise Pascal
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