Speaking French Quotes

#1. Magical?" "Non." "Magnificent?" "Don't be absurd." "Less bleak than anything else we have seen?" "Now truly you are speaking French," the ambassador said approvingly.

Neal Stephenson

#2. So, when there is a strife of tongues, at some meeting, the chairman, to obtain unity, suggests that every one shall speak in French. Perhaps it is bad French; French may not contain the words that express the speaker's thoughts; nevertheless speaking French imposes some order, some uniformity.

Virginia Woolf

#3. I found myself speaking more slowly (in an attempt to obey the Bible in speech), as if I was speaking French instead of English.

A. J. Jacobs

#4. The word he used was coup, and I'm not speaking French just to arouse you.

Jim Lynch

#5. Eddie Izzard is doing his show in French ... Will he be able to fake ad-lib as well in other languages? He's been speaking French for a while now, but he's talking about doing his act in German. Haven't the German people suffered enough?

Andy Kindler

#6. I stand and listen to people speaking french in the stores and in the street. It's such a pert, crisp language, elegant as ruffling taffeta.

Belva Plain

#7. Love is like riding or speaking French. If you don't learn it young, it's hard to get the trick of it later.

Julian Fellowes

#8. When I was a child, I grew up speaking French, I mean, in a French public school. So my first contact with literature was in French, and that's the reason why I write in French.

J.M.G. Le Clezio

#9. To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman

Frances Hodgson Burnett

#10. I can't think of this country without Quebec. Je parle francais. And when I think about being a Canadian, speaking French is part of it.

Michael Ignatieff

#11. since for me speaking French is like speaking without saying anything somehow - with no responsibilities, the way we speak in a dream.

Thomas Mann

#12. By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

Joseph Epstein

#13. If you are an Arabic-speaking, Greek-Orthodox going to a French school it makes you deeply sceptical if you have to listen to three different accounts of the Crusades - one from the Muslim side, one from the Greek side and one from the Catholic side.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#14. French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.

Alma Gluck

#15. Besides, if I wanted to hear people speaking wall-to-wall French, all I had to do was remove my headphones and participate in what is known as 'real life,' a concept as uninviting as a shampoo cocktail.

David Sedaris

#16. The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.

Pamela Druckerman

#17. Most, actually, German actors have like some speaking of French. So, the French wasn't the problem. But, I was having a problem with them doing my dialogue in English. And it wasn't a matter of fluency.

Quentin Tarantino

#18. The main body of Vikings were given lands in the Seine basin in exchange for protecting Paris. They settled into northern France and within a century were speaking a dialect of French and became known as the Normans.

Mark Kurlansky

#19. French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me.

Kristin Scott Thomas

#20. First things first: Marie Antoinette never said, 'Let them eat cake.' Those words were attributed to an earlier French Queen, Marie-Therese, the wife of the Sun King Louis XIV. By 1767---a year in which Marie Antoinette was still an innocent German-speaking twelve-year-old in Austria....

Kris Waldherr

#21. Never say "Au revoir" unless you have been talking French, or are speaking to a French person.

Emily Post

#22. She was one of those golden mulatas that French-speaking Caribbeans call chabines, that my boys call chicas de oro; she had snarled, apocalyptic hair, copper eyes, and was one whiteskinned relative away from jaba.

Junot Diaz

#23. 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.

Edith Wharton

#24. Cantona's expression speaking the whole French dictionary without saying a word.

Barry Davies

#25. Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going

Charles Dickens

#26. He sucked his lips in an attempt not to laugh. "Aren't you Spanish?"
She raised one arm in a salute. "Viva la Queen Isabella!"
"I see. Then why are you speaking with a French accent?

Julia Quinn

#27. We need French chaplains and imams, French-speaking, who learn French, who love France. And who adhere to its values. And also French financing.

Manuel Valls

#28. Ma and Mrs. Daly were on speaking terms, most of the time; women prefer to hate each other at close range, where you get more bang for your buck.

Tana French

#29. Most important, though, I had to wait until I found the perfect traveling/eating/drinking/napping companion. And I did finally find him, two years ago - my Brazilian-born, French-speaking, wine-worshipping, tripe-consuming, uncomplaining traveler of a sweetheart.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#30. The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but "accessory" in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.

Robert Graves

#31. Paris was all so ... Parisian. I was captivated by the wonderful wrongness of it all - the unfamiliar fonts, the brand names in the supermarket, the dimensions of the bricks and paving stones. Children, really quite small children, speaking fluent French!

David Nicholls

#32. I grew up speaking Spanish and English. My mother can speak Spanish, English, French and Italian, and she's pretty good at faking Portuguese. I wish that I spoke more languages than I do.

Sebastian Arcelus

#33. Shakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well.

Bob Dylan

#34. (Claude and Marcel LeFever were speaking in French. This simultaneous English translation is being beamed to the reader via literary satellite.)

Tom Robbins

#35. I was raised speaking English and Spanish. And I also speak Danish. And I can get by in French and Italian. I've acted in Spanish and English, but when something has to do with emotions, sometimes I feel I can get to the heart of the matter better in Spanish.

Viggo Mortensen