Paris Quotes - Page 2

At Rome thing can or cannot be done when you are told anything cannot be done, there is an end of it.""It is much more convenient at Paris; when anything cannot be done you pay double and it is done directly

The veneer of civilization fell away to reveal desperate animals, humanity at their worst.

... Paris was a city of love for unimaginative folks.

... far be it from a French man to interfere with love.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital [Paris].

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.

This can’t be a coincidence, and there’s no longer any doubt in my mind.tI am in a horror story.

Picasso created blank spaces through which an imagination could fly.

God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.

I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there's a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.All along the Seine, street lamps come on, apartment windows turn golden."It's seven," Julien says, and I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself, not for this young man of mine.

The whole of Paris was lit up. The tiny dancing flames had bespangled the sea of darkness from end to end of the horizon, and now, like millions of stars, they burned with a steady light in the serene summer night. There was no breath of wind to make them flicker as they hung there in space. They made the unseen city seem as vast as a firmament, reaching out into infinity.

Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.

If you were in paris your food might as well glitter.

Paris has always seemed ... the only city where you can live and express yourself as you please.

In those days, long before, a view over the rooftops of Paris was an unaffordable luxury. The apartment he had shared with a mousy young writer from Laon had a view of the Jardin de Luxembourg – if he stuck his head out of the window as far as it would go and twisted it to the left, a smudge of green foliage appeared in the corner of one eye. That had been his best apartment to date. They had decorated it in the ‘Bohemian’ style of the 1830s : a few volumes of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, a Phrygian cap, an Algerian hookah, a skull on a broomstick handle (from the brother of a friend, Charles Toubin, who was an intern at one of the big hospitals) and, of course, a window box of geraniums, which was not only pretty but also illegal. (Death by falling window box was always high up the official list of fatalities.) For a proper view of Paris, they visited Henry’s painter friends who lived in a warren of attic rooms near the Barriere d’Enfer and called themselves the Water-Drinkers. When the weather was fine and the smell of their own squalor became unbearable, they clambered onto the roof and sat on the gutters and ridges, sketching chimneyscapes, and sending up more smoke from their pipes than the fireplaces below.Three of the Water-Drinkers had since died of various illnesses known collectively as ‘lack of money’. When the last of the three was buried, in the spring of 1844, Henry and the others had found themselves at the graveside without a sou to give a gravedigger. ‘Never mind’, said he, “you can pay me the next time, ‘ and then, to his collegue : ‘It’s all right – these gentlemen are a regular customers.

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.

Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?

Certainly there were places of greater natural beauty—but Paris but UNNATURAL beauty, which was arguably better.' - The Runaway Queen (The Bane Chronicles, 2) by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

He insisted on clearing the table, and again devoted himself to his game of patience: piecing together the map of Paris, the bits of which he’d stuffed into the pocket of his raincoat, folded up any old how.I helped him.Then he asked me, straight out, ‘What would you say was the true centre of Paris?’I was taken aback, wrong-footed. I thought this knowledge was part of a whole body of very rarefied and secret lore. Playing for time, I said, ‘The starting point of France’s roads . . . the brass plate on the parvis of Notre-Dame.’He gave me a withering look.‘Do you take for me a sap?’The centre of Paris, a spiral with four centres, each completely self-contained, independent of the other three. But you don’t reveal this to just anybody. I suppose - I hope - it was in complete good faith that Alexandre Arnoux mentioned the lamp behind the apse of St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. I wouldn’t have created that precedent. My turn now to let the children play with the lock.‘The centre, as you must be thinking of it, is the well of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. The “Well of Truth” as it’s been known since the eleventh century.’He was delighted. I’d delivered. He said, ‘You know, you and I could do great things together. It’s a pity I’m already “beyond redemption”, even at this very moment.’His unhibited display of brotherly affection was of childlike spontaneity. But he was still pursuing his line of thought: he dashed out to the nearby stationery shop and came back with a little basic pair of compasses made of tin.‘Look. The Vieux-Chene, the Well. The Well, the Arbre-a-Liege On either side of the Seine, adhering closely to the line he’d drawn, the age-old tavern signs were at pretty much the same distance from the magic well.‘Well, now, you see, it’s always been the case that whenever something bad happens at the Vieux-Chene, a month later — a lunar month, that is, just twenty-eight days — the same thing happens at old La Frite’s place, but less serious. A kind of repeat performance. An echoThen he listed, and pointed out on the map, the most notable of those key sites whose power he or his friends had experienced.In conclusion he said, ‘I’m the biggest swindler there is, I’m prepared to be swindled myself, that’s fair enough. But not just anywhere. There are places where, if you lie, or think ill, it’s Paris you disrespect. And that upsets me. That’s when I lose my cool: I hit back. It’s as if that’s what I was there for.

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?

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.

Parisians were not easy to engage in conversation. Perhaps that was why the Resistance had been so successful.

Dangerous as a lightning strike, as lethal as a pair of crisscrossing short swords, William whispered, “You’re about to find out how your liver tastes, my friend.”“I have tasted it already,” Zacharel said, his voice its usual monotone. The snowflakes began to fall in earnest, tiny at first, but growing in diameter. An arctic wind blustered around him. “It was a bit salty.”How the hell was a guy supposed to respond to that?Apparently William didn’t know, either, because he gaped at the angel. Then, “Maybe if you added a little pepper?”O-kay. It was official. William had an answer for everything.

An age-old city is like a pond. With its colours and reflections. Its chills and murk. Its ferment, its sorcery, its hidden life.A city is like a woman, with a woman’s desires and dislikes. Her abandon and restraint. Her reserve - above all, her reserve.To get to the heart of a city, to learn its most subtle secrets, takes infinite tenderness, and patience sometimes to the point of despair. It calls for an artlessly delicate touch, a more or less unconditional love. Over centuries.Time works for those who place themselves beyond time.You’re no true Parisian, you do not know your city, if you haven’t experienced its ghosts. To become imbued with shades of grey, to blend into the drab obscurity of blind spots, to join the clammy crowd that emerges, or seeps, at certain times of day from the metros, railway stations, cinemas or churches, to feel a silent and distant brotherhood with the lonely wanderer, the dreamer in his shy solitude, the crank, the beggar, even the drunk - all this entails a long and difficult apprenticeship, a knowledge of people and places that only years of patient observation can confer.

The facts of religion were convincing only to those who were already convinced.

This is what you British do not understand about the French. You think you must work, work, work, work and open on Sundays and make mothers and fathers with families slave in supermarkets at three o'clock in the morning and make people leave their homes and their churches and their children and go shopping on Sundays.''Their shops are open on Sundays?' said Benoît in surprise.'Yes! They make people work on Sundays! And through lunchtimes! But for what? For rubbish from China? For cheap clothes sewed by poor women in Malaysia? For why? So you can go more often to KFC and get full of fried chicken? You would rather have six bars of bad chocolate than one bar of good chocolate. Why? Why are six bad things better than one good thing? I don't understand.

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

One of his hands move away from my face to flatten against my back, pulling me closer to him as he deepens the kiss. He parts my lips under his as my mind seems to sign quietly in content. I kiss him back as fiercely as he kisses me, unable to control the infatuation that rushes through me - feeling almost like fireworks. Not so careful anymore.Little shivers of urgency shoot through me. I push off the window, pressing closer to him. The rush of sensation that is coursing through me feels like I've drunk a gallon of coffee. It feels like an electric buzz is flooding between us.

I have heard queens' swans, moved a man to cry,heard Bach played in the Metro on guitars.I have made love in Paris. Let me die.

Fairy tales only happen in movies." -George Meliesfrom The Invention of Hugo Cabret

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

Summer fell upon Paris, with everyone still intently following his own subterranean course of passion or habit and looking up like a startled creature of the night at the blazing June sun. Now, all of a sudden, there was an impelling necessity to go away, to give a continuation or a meaning to the winter that had just gone by.

She thought constantly about Paris and avidly read all the society pages in the papers. Their accounts of receptions, celebrations, the clothes worn, and all the accompanying delights enjoyed, whetted her appetite still further. Above all, however, she was fascinated by what these reports merely hinted at. The cleverly phrased allusions half-lifted a veil beyond which could be glimpsed devastatingly attractive horizons promising a whole new world of wicked pleasure. From where she lived, she looked on Paris as representing the height of all magnificent luxury as well as licentiousness...she conjured up the images of all the famous men who made the headlines and shone like brilliant comets in the darkness of her sombre sky. She pictured the madly exciting lives they must lead, moving from one den of vice to the next, indulging in never-ending and extraordinarily voluptuous orgies, and practising such complex and sophisticated sex as to defy the imagination. It seemed to her that hidden behind the façades of the houses lining the canyon-like boulevards of the city, some amazing erotic secret must lie."The uneventful life she lived had preserved her like a winter apple in an attic. Yet she was consumed from within by unspoken and obsessive desires. She wondered if she would die without ever having tasted the wicked delights which life had to offer, without ever, not even once, having plunged into the ocean of voluptuous pleasure which, to her, was Paris.

Nell looks at the label and comes to."Oh, I'd never wear it. I like to buy things on a cost-per-wear basis. This dress would probably work out at like...thirty pounds a wear. No. I couldn't.""You don't ever do something just because it makes you feel good?" The assistant shrugs. "Mademoiselle, you need to spend more time in Paris.

Usually, the murmur that rises up from Paris by day is the city talking; in the night it is the city breathing; but here it is the city singing. Listen, then, to this chorus of bell-towers - diffuse over the whole the murmur of half a million people - the eternal lament of the river - the endless sighing of the wind - the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed upon the hills, in the distance, like immense organpipes - extinguish to a half light all in the central chime that would otherwise be too harsh or too shrill; and then say whetehr you know of anything in the world more rich, more joyous, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes - this furnace of music - these thousands of brazen voices, all singing together in flutes of stone three hundred feet high, than this city which is but one orchestra - this symphony which roars like a tempest.

I like The Eiffel Tower because it looks like steel and lace.

There's a simplicity and a sense of adventure to being alone, and I sometimes envy you for having it, as you explore Paris. Even when you're getting your heart broken, you can still wake up and not know what's going to happen next.

I am tired and drunk and still hungry. He is full of steak and Coca-Cola and, presumably, energy: enough energy to cross the road and walk up the steps inside the tower of the cathedral, which I have never entered.

Here, in a few words, you’ve said all you need to say. People stand by each other, but they don’t talk. It’s remarkable. I’ve investigated the extraordinary history of these walls. I think I’m the only person who knows that it’s the stones, the stones alone that set the tone here.

FAITES L'AMOUR ET RECOMMENCEZ (make love and make it again)

... you’ll have to fall in love at least once in your life, or Paris has failed to rub off on you.

I will follow anyoneAnd ask everyoneTo stand together as one nationAgainst the killing of innocent citizens

To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.

As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris.

When we step onto the bridge, Nathan turns and spreads his arms out wide. ‘Welcome to Pont des Arts, a.k.a. The Lock Bridge.

Hem, you know I don't think that owner's wife where you live likes me. She wouldn't let me wait upstairs for you.''I'll tell her,' I said.'Don't bother. I can always wait here. It's very pleasant in the sun now, isn't it?''It's fall now,' I said. 'I don't think you dress warmly enough.''It's only cool in the evening,' Evan said. 'I'll wear my coat.''Do you know where it is?''No. But it's somewhere safe.''How do you know?''Because I left the poem in it.

... but we’ll be back for dinner … especially if you’re having soup de jour!”“Now, Troy! You know very well that soup de jour means ‘soup of the day.’ It changes every time!

Eiffel Tower" To Robert DelaunayEiffel Tower Guitar of the skyYour wireless telegraphy Attracts words As a rosebush the beesDuring the night The Seine no longer flowsTelescope or bugleEIFFEL TOWERAnd it's a hive of words Or an inkwell of honeyAt the bottom of dawn A spider with barbed-wire legs Was making its web of cloudsMy little boy To climb the Eiffel Tower You climb on a songDo re mi fa sol la ti do We are up on top A bird sings in the telegraph antennae It's the wind Of Europe The electric windOver there The hats fly away They have wings but they don't singJacqueline Daughter of France What do you see up thereThe Seine is asleep Under the shadow of its bridgesI see the Earth turning And I blow my bugleToward all the seasOn the path Of your perfume All the bees and the words go their wayOn the four horizons Who has not heard this song I AM THE QUEEN OF THE DAWN OF THE POLES I AM THE COMPASS THE ROSE OF THE WINDS THAT FADESEVERY FALLAND ALL FULL OF SNOW I DIE FROM THE DEATH OF THAT ROSE IN MY HEAD A BIRD SINGS ALL YEAR LONGThat's the way the Tower spoke to me one dayEiffel Tower Aviary of the world Sing SingChimes of ParisThe giant hanging in the midst of the void Is the poster of FranceThe day of Victory You will tell it to the stars

They say you can fool some of the people all of the time. Accordingly, I think we should concentrate on this group initially. We can move on to the people you can only fool some of the time at a later date if we deem it necessary.

Tis true what Hemingway says--if we're lucky enough to live our dreams in youth, as Ernest Hemingway did in 1920's Paris and I did with the Beat poets, then youth's dreams become a moveable feast you take wherever you go--youthful love remains the repast plentiful; exquisite, substantive and good. You can live on happy memories. Eat of them forever.

I wish I could go to Paris right now.

Terrorism & tourism rhyme with each other. Yet they don't go well alongside despite some similiarities shared. If one booms it is doomsday to the other. It is sheer juxtaposition between the two lucrative industries in the city of the lights left in a sorry plight.

But one gets tired of everything, even of abusing a person. Paris abandons its puppets which it raises to the throne as quickly as it does its martyrs whom it hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much before the statues of its heroes or at the sight of the blood of its victims.

Guard your throats and hide your eyes. He’s not dead, you fools. Legends never die.

He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.Nothing is more sublime.

You will be my souvenir in American summer,when all I can think about are Parisian springs.

Lend your ear then to this tutti of steeples; diffuse over the whole the buzz of half a million of human beings, the eternal murmur of the river, the infinite piping of the wind, the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed like immense organs on the four hills of the horizon; soften down, as with a demi-tint, all that is too shrill and too harsh in the central mass of sound, and say if you know any thing in the world more rich, more gladdening, more dazzling than that tumult of bells; than that furnace of music; than those ten thousand brazen tones breathed all at once from flutes of stone three hundred feet high; than that city which is but one orchestra; than that symphony rushing and roaring like a tempest.

Reticence was clearly a national characteristic, even if the other person spoke French.

There's nowhere that life feels more eternal, your dimwit youth more important, than Paris.