Best 533 quotes in «paris quotes» category

If I walked down by different streets to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon I could walk through the gardens and then go to the Musée du Luxembourg where the great paintings were that have now mostly been transferred to the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume. I went there nearly every day for the Cézannes and to see the Manets and the Monets and the other Impressionists that I had first come to know about in the Art Institute at Chicago. I was learning something from the painting of Cézanne that made writing simple true sentences far from enough to make the stories have the dimensions that I was trying to put in them. I was learning very much from him but I was not articulate enough to explain it to anyone. Besides it was a secret. But if the light was gone in the Luxembourg I would walk up through the gardens and stop in at the studio apartment where Gertrude Stein lived at 27 rue de Fleurus.

I freeze, my feet suddenly glued to the floor. It takes me a minute to gather the courage to turn around, but when I do, I immediately wish I hadn't. The boy is standing in the doorway at the end of the hall. Why is he here again? I barely allow myself time to ask the question before I move. Panicked, I turn and run back downstairs as fast as I can. "Hey! Wait!" he calls after me. I don't stop.

Friendships outlive marriages and family. Friendships can make a life wonderful or wasted, worth sacrificing or worth saving. In the Paris-based 7-book Apricot Tree House Mystery Series, Jamie Litton and Ben Foulof choose to save each other because they have learned that friendship is that fragile thread tethering all of us between Heaven and Earth.

If "Sex and the City" taught us anything, it's that Paris is the only city in the world that New Yorkers actually fantasize about.

If you feel joy when you do something unselfish for him, and would just as soon do it in secret as openly, then that rings of the true metal

I have always had a weakness for footnotes. For me a clever or a wicked footnote has redeemed many a text. And I see that I am now using a long footnote to open a serious subject - shifting in a quick move to Paris, to a penthouse in the Hotel Crillon. Early June. Breakfast time. The host is my good friend Professor Ravelstein, Abe Ravelstein. My wife and I, also staying at the Crillon, have a room below, on the sixth floor. She is still asleep. The entire floor below ours (this is not absolutely relevant but somehow I can't avoid mentioning it) is occupied just now by Michael Jackson and his entourage. He performs nightly in some vast Parisian auditorium. Very soon his French fans will arrive and a crowd of faces will be turned upward, shouting in unison, 'Miekell Jack-sown'. A police barrier holds the fans back. Inside, from the sixth floor, when you look down the marble stairwell you see Michael's bodyguards. One of them is doing the crossword puzzle in the 'Paris Herald'.

If you give the apple to me as the worthiest, I will make an apple pie!

If you're not creating, you're disintegrating.

I grab the nearest lamppost when my knees threaten to give out, panting for breath as the words rip through me

Indulgence comes in all varieties: a mouthful of gourmet chocolate, a hot stone massage, a week in Paris or 20 uninterrupted minutes to get lost in a book.

I head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower when I exit the alley, relieved to be out of the dark.

I know the consequences, Manon,” Ilyse conceded. “I know the fate you endured might one day be my own. But I refuse to be a prisoner for the rest of my life.

Il était tard; ainsi qu'une médaille neuve La pleine lune s'étalait, Et la solennité de la nuit, comme un fleuve Sur Paris dormant ruisselait.

Il existait à Paris des zones intermédiaires, des no man's land où l'on était à la lisière de tout, en transit, ou même en suspens.

I'll keep you here.' He taps his temple. 'Where you can't get lost.

I'll pretty much try any cheese, but I have found that I prefer young goats and old cows. I don't like gray areas.

I love to watch cities wake up, and Paris wakes up more abruptly, more startlingly, than any place I know.

In a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.

I like to wake up after a night of drinking, and amazing dreams, and for a second not know where I am. I love that feeling. It means you are still moving, still alive. And then you go, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” “Shit, I’m in England, or shit I’m in Germany.” Or it can be warm, like, “Oh yeah, I’m in Paris. I live in Paris. How the hell did you pull that one off?” Those first few seconds, when you first wake up, they are key.

Lonely. My heart grips as the word crosses my mind. So many different feelings come with the word, not just loneliness. The word went beyond its definition. Loneliness has a deeper meaning to those who truly know what it means to be alone.

Majestatis naturæ by ingenium (Genius equal to the majesty of nature.) [Inscribed ordered by King Louis XV for the base of a statue of Buffon placed at Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris.]

I'm being pulled under - father and farther from the surface. My lungs continue to scream for air. Panic is building inside me, threatening to combust. I can't break free. Help! I can't break free! I open my mouth to scream.

I miss the flowers; more than anything else I miss the flowers,’ she mused. And sought after them even in the paintings which we brought from the shops and the galleries, magnificent canvases such as I'd never seen in New Orleans-from the classically executed lifelike bouquets, tempting you to reach for the petals that fell on a three-dimensional tablecloth, to a new and disturbing style in which the colors seemed to blaze with such intensity they destroyed the old lines, the old solidity, to make a vision like to those states when I'm nearest my delirium and flowers grow before my eyes and crackle like the flames of lamps. Paris flowed into these rooms.

Increasingly, a new generation of artists were finding the creative projects which so excited them systematically rebuffed by the official art bodies. It was exasperating. Did the jury of the Salon, that ‘great event’ of the artistic world, never tire of the tedious repertoire of historical events and myths that had formed the mainstay of Salon paintings for so long? Did they not feel ridiculed being sold the blatant lie of highly finished paint surfaces, of bodies without a blemish, of landscapes stripped of all signs of modernity? Was contemporary life, the sweat and odour of real men and women, not deserving of a place on the Salon walls? Young artists huddled around tables in Montmartre’s cafés, sharing their deepest frustrations, breathing life into their most keenly held ideas. Just a few streets away from the Cimetière de Montmartre, Édouard Manet, the enfant terrible of the contemporary art world, could be found at his regular table in the Café Guerbois surrounded by reverent confrères, who would in time become famous in their own right. When Manet spoke, his blue eyes sparkled, his body leant forwards persuasively, and an artistic revolution felt achievable. The atmosphere was electric, the conversation passionate – often heated, but always exciting. The discussions ‘kept our wits sharpened,’ Claude Monet later recalled, ‘they encouraged us with stores of enthusiasm that for weeks and weeks kept us up.’ And though the war caused many of the artists to leave the capital, it proved merely a temporary migration. At the time Madeleine and her daughters arrived in Montmartre, the artists had firmly marked their patch.

In French culture, the best way of buying time or getting off the hook entirely in a thorny personal situation is to claim that it’s complicated. The French did not invent love, but they did invent romance, so they’ve had more time than any other culture on earth to refine the nuances of its language.

In Paris, the dance was everything. The dance of romance was what a man could remember in his old age. Didn’t all young Americans come to Europe in search of that kind of romance?

In Paris, women were not considered interesting until they were middle-aged. The Mist of Montmartre

In pre-air conditioning days, even a little cooling breeze felt good. On this particular evening the dining room was filled to capacity, as the French Hotel was still one of the best places to eat in Monrovia. The overflow extended out under the cover of the verandah and was also filled with people. With so few places to dine in Monrovia, eating here under the corrugated fiberglass roof was a treat for the expats. I had already eaten aboard ship and was hoping that some of my friends would come around and join me for a few drinks but that evening it didn't happen and I didn’t recognize many people. It did however give me the opportunity to talk to Monique. After some two hours of talking to her between drinks I learned that she came from the Left Bank of Paris. Her parents lived above an antique shop on the Rue de las Halles and were adamantly against her coming to Africa. Because of an argument she had left her boyfriend behind, and now I think was sorry for that, although she wouldn’t admit it. It was obvious that she was homesick and I believe that she thinking about him. Monique couldn’t believe what she got herself into, and now was stuck with a two year contract in this hell hole. She mentioned that although the constant advances from the men was flattering, it was beginning to become wearing. She said that some of the people in Monrovia scared her and I understood exactly what she meant. Just being in Liberia was a challenge…. Was it my imagination, or was I making headway with this dark-haired, French beauty? With each drink I became more convinced of this, and at the same time was feeling less pain. The night was still young and I was in no rush to leave. Surely there was some hope and I was trying my best…. Then, suddenly without warning Monique told me that she had to go. “Je dois y aller maintenant.” What… She’s leaving? I’ve been told that it’s a thing the French do… but leaving me at the bar for no apparent reason? Monique however assured me that her partner, Claudine, would continue serving me and perhaps, “Who knows?” Monique said with a twinkle in her eyes... I shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew what it was that I was angling for. Hell, I thought that I was one of the good guys, besides whom was she sleeping with? A white girl in Liberia would never go it alone…. there had to be someone! What happened that Monique suddenly had to leave? Poof and she was gone! In her stead now was Claudine who was rough around the edges and knew her way around. It never occurred to me that Monique’s shift would be over before the closing hour!

In Rome the statues, in Paris the paintings, and in Prague the buildings suggest that pleasure can be an education.

In Paris, choosing a dress is a monumental decision. In Milan, it’s a kick.

In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins." And I say, "Really?" because there are plenty of them in Germany. I'm never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian cashiers, who are, in a word, lazy. Here in Tokyo they're not just hard working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don't mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like "We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god.

In the City of Light, the stars are blind. Our constellations do not reside in the skies.

I remember the way his eyes pinned my body against the backdrop of Paris as if I was some rare butterfly pinned to an exhibit box.

In the waltz of the leaves in the air In the features of the playful clouds In the nostalgia carried by the wind In Paris alone, I save your love (fragment from Your presence “partout”, chapter Hope)

I stared at absurd Paris, which was as cluttered now, under the scalding sun, as the landscape of my heart.

I thought of the fifteen years I lived 'sans papiers' in France and how Paris had belonged to me. I was like a king in France. And now that suddenly I was French, Paris was gone for me. I had abdicated the throne the French people had given to me. All those people were gone. The whole city had changed. I left for five years: three spent wandering in Europe, while two years I spent living in Muslim Morocco; and now Paris had changed and there was no going back.

Is that how you’re supposed to find your soulmate and fall in love these days? By flirting in 140 character tweets and stalking each other’s social media pages?

I take in all the colorful locks that line the bridge. Each one told a story. Each lock represented a relationship that was once special, whether it ended or turned into true happiness. The locks represented a past, present, and a possible future.

Its history is an especially rich and intriguing one for women: the great salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave women an intellectual influence and freedom; in the nineteenth century, for the bohemian and the flâneuse pleasure and revolution were a seductive mix; in the mid-twentieth century, Paris spelled freedom for Simone de Beauvoir who set the standard for contemporary feminism in her exhilarating The Second Sex.

It’s a great city, Paris, a beautiful city––and––it was very good for me.

I’ve always had a thing for men with large hadron colliders.

It wasn’t playing both sides of the fence – it was betting against yourself but still playing to win – and it encapsulated everything absurd and paradoxical that I loved about the French.

I used to ask myself, ‘Sergei, would you rather spend your money on drink or women?’ and thanks to the club, I spend it on both and am called a patron of the arts.

It was time to take what he wanted. And what he wanted was her.

I've never understood people who just go out for one drink. Once I have one drink, I want all the drinks.

N'importe quoi pouvait donc m'arriver, comme à n'importe qui : quelle révolution! C'est tellement étonnant d'être soi, justement soi, c'est si radicalement unique, qu'on a peine à se persuader que cette singularité se rencontre chez tout le monde et qu'on relève des statistiques. Maladie, accident, malheur, ça n'arrive jamais qu'aux autres : mais sous les yeux des curieux, l'autre brusquement, c'était moi; comme tous les autres, j'étais pour tous les autres une autre.

I was supposed to stay for 3 months. But I think I always knew I would stay a little longer, despite the crazy Frenchies. Or maybe because of them.

I will follow anyone And ask everyone To stand together as one nation Against the killing of innocent citizens

I wish I could go to Paris right now.

Morning" SUN That awakens Paris The highest poplar on the bank On The Eiffel Tower A tricolored cock Sings to the flapping of his wings and several feathers fall As it resumes its course The Seine looks between the bridges For her old route And the Obelisk That has forgotten the Egyptian words Has not blossomed this year SUN