Quotes: France

You know, I left the country when Reagan got in; I went to France. And when George Bush Jr. got in, my instincts told me it was time to go – I’d felt that we had grown above that, you know?

Genetic studies in Iceland have found that many of the women who were the founding stock of Iceland came from England and what is now France. Some were probably captured and carried off in Viking raids only 40 generations ago.

As an adolescent I was convinced that France would have to go through gigantic trials, that the interest of life consisted in one day rendering her some signal service and that I would have the occasion to do so.

And it is practically the same in the case of the four or five million poor peasants in France, and also for Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and two of the Scandinavian countries. Everywhere small and medium sized industry prevails.

People in France are very intrusive when they recognize you. In New York, they are very polite, with quick words, so it’s great.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them.

France is not poetic; she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.

The single currency should allow the European Union, and therefore France, to balance its monetary strength with the United States. It should help us adjust to the development of China.

I have worked with this red all over the world – in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia – a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.

It is alleged that half a million Spanish men, women and children fled to France after the Franco victory.