French

Je suis autant Chinois que Fran c° ais. I am as much Chinese as French.

—Flaubert, Gustave

As the French say, there are three sexesömen, women, and clergymen.

—Smith, Rev Sydney

Into the face of the young man†had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French.

—Plum

The French are a logical people, which is one reason the English dislike them so intensely. The other is that they own France, a country which we have always judged to be much too good for them.

—Morley, Robert

The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.

—Mazarin,Jules, Cardinal

The French are polite, but it is often mere ceremonious politeness. A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness that compels belief in their sincerity.

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than theyare.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Avery unique cat†a French Canadian Hinayana Buddhist Beat Catholic savant.

—Ginsberg, Allen

The things people had once held against her† unconventional beauty†un-American elegance, the taste for French clothes and French foodöwere suddenly no longer liabilities but assets.

—Schlesinger, Arthur M(eier),Jr

The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose.

—Gray,Thomas

The Frenchhad a moremartial air thanthe English.There seemed to be a species of military instinct in all classes. No young man appeared to have finished his education till after a bloody campaign† They were at this singular period, without the least exaggeration, a century behind us in notions of legal and moral responsibility.

—Haydon, Benjamin Robert

La langue fran c° aise n'est point fixe¤  e et ne se fixera point. French is not a static language and will never become static.

—Hugo,Victor Marie

I started off in films as a kingöa French king, admittedly, but nevertheless a king in MarieAntoinetteöand stayed in that sort of income bracket.

—Morley, Robert

An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English speaking audiences.

—Wharton, Edith Newbold ne¤  e Jones

   A spectre is haunting Europeöthe spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holyalliance to exorcise this spectre; Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.

—Marx, Karl Heinrich

The French Revolution is merely the herald of a far greaterand much more solemn revolution, whichwill be the last† The hour has come for founding the Republic of equalsöthat great refuge open to every man.

—Babeuf, Fran c° ois Noe«  l

Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne, Entuned in hir nose ful semely, And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.

—Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Frenchwant to attack, the Americans want to bomb, and the British want to have another meeting.

—Anonymous

The French will only be united under the threat of danger. How else can one govern a country that produces 246 different types of cheese?

—de Gaulle, Charles

Oh, the Germans classify, but the French arrange.

—Cather,Willa Sibert

  You get all the French-fries the President can't get to.

—Gore, Al(bert,Jr)

Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes.

—Douglas, (George) Norman

   You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy† In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women.You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

—Herbert, 1st Earl

Imagine the Lord talking French! Aside from a few odd wordsin Hebrew,Itook it forgrantedthat God had never spoken anything but the most dignified English.

—Day, Clarence Shepard

Weep not for little Le¤  onie Abducted by a French Marquis! Though loss of honour was a wrench Just think how it's improved her French.

—Graham, Harry

Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coastöa man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.

—Sterne, Laurence

New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic. San Francisco is a lady, Boston has become Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington blink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one- trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle. St Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas naught but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities.

—Mailer, Norman Kingsley

It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.

—Brooks,VanWyck

Greater lovethanthis,hesaid, nomanhaththat a manlay down his wife for his friend.Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail.

—Joyce,James Augustine Aloysius

My scrofulous French novel On grey paper with blunt type!

—Browning, Robert

Mayonnaise, n.One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

—Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett

During my seven years in office,I was in love with seventeen million French women† I know this declaration will inspire irony and that English language readers will find it very French.

—Giscard d'Estaing,Vale¤  ry

Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thingöturn out your toes as you walköand remember who you are!

—Dodgson

Our special task, as French Canadians, is to insert into America the spirit of Christian France.

—Bourassa, Henri

Our fathers have, in process of centuries, provided this realm, its colonies and wide dependencies, with a speech as malleable and pliant as Attic, dignified as Latin, masculine, yet free of Teutonic guttural, capable of being precise as French, dulcet as Italian, sonorous as Spanish, and captaining all these excellences to its service.

—Quiller-Couch, SirArthurThomas known as  'Q'

To God I speak Spanish, to women Italian, to men French, and to my horseöGerman.

—CharlesV

We are all American at puberty; we die French.

—Waugh, Evelyn Arthur StJohn

  What are we learning Frenchor thepianofor,Iwould like to know, if it is not to be sold to a man some day† We have to cringe, and manoeuvre, and grimace for a husbandöa husband who may be deaf orhavea hump if he is richöa husband that may attack you in delirium tremens to-day if he makes a devout act of contrition for it to-morrow.

—O'Brien,William

'Do you know Languages? What's the French for fiddle- de-dee?' 'Fiddle-de-dee's not English,'Alice replied gravely. 'Who ever said it was?'said the Red Queen. Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time.'If you'll tell me what language'fiddle-de-dee' is, I'll tell you the French for it!'she exclaimed triumphantly. Butthe Red Queendrewherself up rather stiffly, and said 'Queens never make bargains.' 197

—Dodgson

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French, And some'll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench. 559

—Masefield,John Edward