She was ready to be a fugitive with him for the rest of her life - 'Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people' - and when a Parisienne is ready to leave Paris behind forever, that's something. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")
It is impossible for a Parisian to resist the desire to flick through the old volumes laid out by a bookseller.[Il est impossible, pour un Parisien, de résister au désir de feuilleter de vieux ouvrages étalés par un bouquiniste.]
Hélène slowly surveyed the room. In this respectable society, amongst these apparently decent middle-class people, were there none but faithless wives? With her strict provincial morality, she was amazed at the licensed promiscuity of Parisian life.
The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.
General sentiment, had a poll been taken, was that eventually the negative media would die down, Egypt's head of antiquities would return to Cairo, and St. Louis would enjoy her treasure. But treasures sometimes have a higher price than their acquisition cost.
The reality is that many of us in these parts are not enamored of Paris." The Commandant gulped down his coffee. "I worked there as a young officer in the CRS, the riot squad. I speak from personal experience. Paris is bizarre. Paris is a museum surrounded by a jungle.
When you’re used to being in dangerous situations, you develop a sixth sense about your surroundings, about where possible enemies might be lurking, how many steps it will take to reach the next corner on a dead run, the best hiding places if bullets start to fly...
For there comes a time in life when the pity previously reserved only for children takes on a different form, a time when we study the faces of 'old people' and sense that one day we will be just like them. And that is the moment when early childhood comes to an end.
...But still, even now, to think of it, I feel something akin to that happiness. And I've more reason now than ever to say that happiness is not what I will ever know, or will ever deserve to know. I am not so much in love with happiness. Yet the name Paris makes me feel it.
Dear Artie: “The young fellow has disappeared into a dead end. I think the long-necked bastard planned to wind up in Paris and sent him there but he may also have used the underground railroad. Ask your round-heeled contact. Maybe you can find more than I could. “Roy
I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood.... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.
For luck you carried a horse chestnut and a rabbit’s foot in your right pocket. The fur had been worn off the rabbit’s foot long ago and the bones and the sinews were polished by the wear. The claws scratched in the lining of your pocket and you knew your luck was still there.
Have you ever been to Paris before?" I asked Kylian."No, though from what I've seen, I'm sure it's worth a trip. And even with what little I saw I think it's quite fitting for you to be the Patroness of Paris. You're like Paris and Paris is like you.""Noisy?""A mystery.
The French have a penchant for absolutism, for thinking that things are all one way or all another, which is why their politics are marked by a general inability to compromise and why they tend to hold their personal opinions until the bitter end, even after they have clearly lost an argument.
For a painter, the Mecca of the world, for study, for inspiration and for living is here on this star called Paris. Just look at it, no wonder so many artists have come here and called it home. Brother, if you can't paint in Paris, you'd better give up and marry the boss's daughter.
