Paris quotes

There is no woman who does not dream of being dressed in Paris.

-Anonymous
  Catalogue of the1925 Paris Exhibition. Quoted in Colin McDowell McDowell's Directory of  Twentieth Century Fashion (1984), ch.1.

Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.

-Appleton,Thomas Gold
Quoted in Oliver Wendell Holmes The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table (1858), ch.6.  Although the speaker in Holmes's book is not identified by name, he is generally identified as  Appleton.

In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines 74 lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.

-Bemelmans, Ludwig
  Madeline.

Fashion ismoretyrannical at Paristhaninanyother place in the world; it governs even more absolutely than their king, which issaying a great deal. The least revolt against it is punished by proscription.You must observe and conform to all the minutiae of it, if you will be in fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.

-Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of
  Letter to his son, 30  Apr.

Rien ne se peut comparer a'   Paris. Nothing can compare to Paris.

-Deschamps, Eustache
c.1370  'Ballade de Paris', refrain.

Paris is a beast of a city to be inöto those who cannot getoutof it.Rousseausaidwell, that allthetimehewasin it, he was only trying how he should leave it† The continual panic inwhichthe passenger iskept, thealarm and the escape from it, the anger and the laughter at it, must haveaneffectonthe Parisian character, and tend to make it the whiffling, skittish, snappish, volatile, inconsequential, unmeaning thing it is.

-Hazlitt,William
  Notes on a Journey through France and Italy (published 1856).

Nos pe'  res avaient un Paris de pierre, nos fils auront un Paris de pla"  tre. Our fathers had a Parismade of stone; our sons will have a Paris made of plaster.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
Notre-Dame de Paris, pt.3, ch.2.

Respirer Paris, cela conserve l'a"  me. To inhale Paris preserves the soul.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
  Les Mise¤  rables, vol.3, bk.1, ch.6.

: He hath been beyond-sea, once, or twice. : As far as Paris, to fetch over a fashion, and come back again.

-Jonson, Ben
     GENTCARL1600  Every Man out of His Humour, act 2, sc.2.

How glorious it would be in the eyes of God and men, if we managed to hunt the Catholics from England, follow them to France, and, like the bold King of Sweden, rouse the Protestants in France, plant our religion in Paris by agreement or force, and go from there to Rome to chase the Antichrist and burn the town whence superstition comes.

-Leslie, David
  Said to Lord Hume, Council of Scottish Nobles,  Aug.

When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.

-Metternich, Prince Clemens Lothar Wenzel
  Letter, 26  Jan.

Hors de Paris, il n'y a point de salut pour les honne"  tes gens. Outside of Paris, there is no salvation for gentlemen.

-Molie'  re,Jean Baptiste Poquelin
  Les pre¤  cieuses ridicules, sc.9.

Even in Paris,Iremained a Canadian.Ipuffed hashish, but I didn't inhale.

-Richler, Mordecai
St Urbain's Horseman, ch.2.The last phrase was later popularized by Bill Clinton, responding to claims that he had taken drugs as a student.

Her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent.

-Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
  Reginald,'Reginald onWorries'.

Me morire¤   en Par|¤s con aguacero, un d|¤a del cual tengo ya el recuerdo. Me morire¤   en Par|¤söy no me corroö tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de oton‹  o. I will die in Paris with a sudden shower, a day I can already remember. I will die in Parisöand I don't budgeö maybe aThursday, like today is, in autumn.

-Vallejo, Ce¤  sarAbraham
  Poemas humanos,'Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca' (translated as'Black Stone on aWhite Stone',1968).

Paris is a city where even the most outrageous story of incest and murder isgreeted with a verbal shrug: 'Mais c'est normal!'

-White, Edmund
InThe Fla"  neur.

:They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris. Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to? : Oh, they go to America.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
 MRS ALLONBYLADY HUNSTANTON:LORD ILLINGWORTH1893  AWoman of No Importance, act1.

17 Quotes found. Displaying quotes 1 through 17

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2005 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.