I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas. — Jean-Luc Godard
I just saw Memento. It's very, very good. I watch a lot of French films. — Colleen Haskell
Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world. — Jean-Luc Godard
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out. — Martin Scorsese
Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind. — Satyajit Ray
Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. — Robert Bresson
I'm not coming from film school, I learned cinema in the cinema watching films. — Wong Kar-wai
The great art of films does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation. — Louise Brooks
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room. — Orson Welles
Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater. — Roman Polanski
The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. — Francois Truffaut
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. — Jacques Rivette
The cinema is an institution nowadays, with its roots sunk deep in the hearts of the millions of people who find enjoyment and entertainment in going to the pictures. — Ivor Novello
The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience, and a little love, we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man. — Jean Renoir
My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two-thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature, I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish. — Fran Lebowitz
When I make an American movie it's going to come out all over the world-it doesn't happen the same way for an Italian film or a French film. — Monica Bellucci
When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris. — Jean-Jacques Annaud
I like to watch French movies with the volume up so my neighbors could think I'm terrorist. — Felipe Esparza
I've wanted to make a film about French youth since I went to Cannes with my first film 'Kids' in 1995 ... Scribe's screenplay is about French kids today, and the world today. Just like my films 'Kids' and 'Ken Park', this will be a movie like you have never seen before. — Larry Clark
Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism. — Wim Wenders
My favourite film is 'Le Diner de Cons,' a French movie. — Stan Wawrinka
The word liberal has been employed as the political equivalent of an untreatable but potentially containable social disease -- the kind that could be contracted merely by going to a foreign movie or ordering a decaf latte, or worse, a glass of French wine. — Eric Alterman
The world distribution of French movies is a laughing matter. That is a fact. — Jean-Jacques Annaud
Movies in this country, its very complicated, and we could bang on about it forever, but the French movie industry is very different because its very obviously French. — Mick Jagger
French Culture Quotes
I see myself as an ambassador of French heritage and French culture. — Bernard Arnault
The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America. — Mireille Guiliano
Culture and tradition have to change little by little. So 'new' means a little twist, a marriage of Japanese technique with French ingredients. My technique. Indian food, Korean food; I put Italian mozzarella cheese with sashimi. I don't think 'new new new.' I'm not a genius. A little twist. — Masaharu Morimoto
French girls still have the Jane Birkin culture. You can go just like that, without makeup, without managing your hair. — Emmanuelle Alt
It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French. — James A. Baldwin
France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything. — Adam Michnik
Race wasn't an issue. My family was French, but Yorkville was a melting pot of races and cultures. — Bob Cousy
Canada could have enjoyed: English government, French culture, and American know-how. Instead it ended up with: English know-how, French government, and American culture. — John Robert Colombo
French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries. — Kristin Scott Thomas
All culture corrupts, but French culture corrupts absolutely. — Lawrence Durrell
French Literature Quotes
It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand. — Fredrik Bajer
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature. — W. Somerset Maugham
I read world literature and I read French romances in the originals. I had quite a profound knowledge - no, that sounds conceited, but I did have a profound interest in everything spiritual. — Baldur von Schirach
In a country like France, so ancient, their history is full of outstanding people, so they carry a heavy weight on their back. Who could write in French after Proust or Flaubert? — Manuel Puig
How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question. — Lytton Strachey
The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own. — Lytton Strachey
In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and German literature. — Patrick White
Twitter reminds me of an era in French literature - Emile Zola and Honoré de Balzac - and the beginning of modernity and gossip. They had these fashion magazines of the time on display with all of the Emile Zola references. — Kim Gordon
Many Europeans think that all Moroccans speak French, but no. I had to make an effort to learn it when I studied French literature at the university in Rabat. — Abdellah Taia
There is an interview given by [ Jean-Paul] Sartre in the USA where he is asked what the future of French literature is, and he replies that the next great writer of the future is [Albert] Camus. — Catherine Camus
French Poetry Quotes
German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful. — Paul Celan
I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. — Paul Auster
I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published. — Sally Kirkland
The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English. — Robert Morgan
In his youth, Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was a bad man. Then he became good, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles and wrote bad poetry. — Bertrand Russell
How many really great writers are there who are totally non-political? You can hear the French Revolution in the poetry of [Percy Bysshe] Shelly and [John] Wordsworth; you can sense the vast inequalities of Tsarist Russia in [Anton] Chekhov and [Lev] Tolstoy. — Adam Hochschild
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table. — Paul Auster
In the French language, there is a great gulf between prose and poetry; in English, there is hardly any difference. It is a splendid privilege of the great literary languages Greek, Latin, and French that they possess a prose. English has not this privilege. There is no prose in English. — Victor Hugo
Let's be honest - Bill Murray was onto something when he laughed at Andie MacDowell's degree in 19th century French poetry in 'Groundhog Day'. — Marco Rubio
The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. — Thomas Gray
French Quotes
The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. French translation — Marcel Pagnol
Original, in French: La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur.
English: Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness. — Auguste Escoffier
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. — Mother Teresa
My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal. — Julius Evola
The greatest difficulty we have faced is the neocolonial way of thinking that exists in this country. We were colonized by a country, France, that left us with certain habits. For us, being successful in life, being happy, meant trying to live as they do in France, like the richest of the French. — Thomas Sankara
Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no 'Nigerians' in the same sense as there are 'English,' 'Welsh,' or 'French.' The word 'Nigerian' is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not. — Obafemi Awolowo
It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals. — Jean-Paul Marat
Never doubt the courage of the French. They were the ones who discovered that snails are edible. — Doug Larson
In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? — Marlene Dietrich
I do a real analysis of who actually owns things - it’s the British…the Dutch…then it’s the Arabs…then it’s the French…then it’s the Jews…and then, on down the line. — Alex Jones
I thought English is a strange language. Now I think French is even more strange. In France, their fish is poisson, their bread is pain, and their pancake is crepe. Pain and poison and crap. That's what they have every day. — Xiaolu Guo
I don't know what it is about the french language, it seems to be scared of coming out of the mouth so it comes out the nose instead. — P.D.Q. Bach
The only true language in the world is a kiss. — Alfred De Musset
French is a language that makes those who speak it both calm and dynamic. — Bernard Pivot
English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background. — David Crystal
What makes international cinema so interesting is that each territory has its own sensibility. When you look at an Indian or French film, there's a certain flavor. And even though the language is different, if the film is successful, it has something very common and understandable. — Wong Kar-wai
One thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do. — Mads Mikkelsen
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. — Mark Twain
French is the language that turns dirt into romance. — Stephen King
Great French Quotes
France turned a deaf ear to the demands, but Ho had succeeded in attracting great publicity in progressive French circles to the situation in Indochina. — Wilfred Burchett
Whoever would have guessed that in the land of cheap sausages and mashed potatoes there could be such a change which would actually bring the French from Paris every weekend to invade Britain en masse to eat great food and drink great wine. — Robin Leach
The older I get, the better I used to be. — Lee Trevino
[We need] someone bold, to put himself at the head of the disaffected and rally them against the oppressor. Some great character who could captivate the people... someone wise who could direct the actions of an unbridled and floating multitude. — Jean-Paul Marat
Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary. — Ernest Hemingway
Life's too short to drink bad wine or smoke poor cigars. — Don Johnson
French Love Quotes
The only consistent hobby I've had is studying Spanish and French because of some delusion of grandeur to work around the world. I love sports but usually I'm looking for the next job. — William Sanderson
When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see the world through rose-colored glasses. — Edith Piaf
That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return.3 — Albert Camus
I like photographing the people I love, the people I admire, the famous, and especially the infamous. My last infamous subject was the extreme right wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. — Helmut Newton
French fries. I love them. Some people are chocolate and sweets people. I love French fries. That and caviar. — Cameron Diaz
Love makes the greatest pleasures and most sensitive misfortunes of life. — Madeleine de Scudery
French Fashion Quotes
Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants. — Karl Lagerfeld
Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. — Coco Chanel
Unshined shoes are the end of civilization. — Diana Vreeland
The companies only developed if the state did not intervene in the French fashion. If on the contrary a certain degree of economic freedom was the rule, capitalism moved in firmly and adapted itself to all administrative quirks and difficulties — Fernand Braudel
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your
languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a
not-too-French French bean! — W. S. Gilbert
If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There's a fashion, or maybe you could call it a necessity, in French cinema to make social films, which is to say films in which the characters are defined by their social context. — Louis Garrel
there are the two sides to a Frenchman, logic and fashion and that is the reason why French people are exciting and peaceful. Logic and fashion. — Gertrude Stein
My deep relations with fashion started in Paris in 1980s, when I was appointed head of The Fashion History course at French Esmod fashion school, the biggest and the best in those years in Paris. — Alexander Vassiliev
American Film Quotes
If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew. — Pocahontas
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. — Clark Gable
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. — Anthony Hopkins
I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti — Thomas Harris
In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and 'get' everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don't understand each atom of the potato! — Jean-Luc Godard
Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American. — Renny Harlin
The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization. — Fredric Jameson
Feudal societies don't create great cinema; we have great theatre. The egalitarian societies create great cinema. The Americans, the French. Because equality is sort of what the cinema deals with. It deals with stories which don't fall into 'Everybody in their place and who's who,' and all that. But the theatre's full of that. — Brian Cox
I think that nudity is beautiful. Sometimes it can be awful, but when it's beautiful? Cinema is the art about reality; it's art from reality. In French we say l'art de la realite. You show reality, so you have to show bodies. — Lea Seydoux
It's the golden age of French cinema again but it's because Sarkozy had the guts to push through copyright law. — Harvey Weinstein
I am still associated with a heroic period in French cinema, and my name remains linked to this period. — Jean-Luc Godard
What happened in the late Fifties, early Sixties in French cinema was a fantastic revolution. I was in Italy, but completely in love with the nouvelle vague movement, and directors like Godard, Truffaut, Demy. 'The Dreamers' was a total homage to cinema and that love for it. — Bernardo Bertolucci
I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity. — Vincent Cassel
The film The Conquest will be seen on many different levels and the American point of view is always more technical. The French are less technical - it's 'I like it, or I don't like it.' I hope that this film can have a life in the U.S. - it's the grand country of cinema. I grew up with Hollywood movies, so for a French director to have a film distributed in the U.S. is a real opportunity. — Xavier Durringer
I want viewers want to talk about The Conquest. I want the dialogue to start after the movie. The cinema is there to leave a trace. I hope my film leaves a trace and that it will open a door for French cinema and that tomorrow other directors will make political movies. The job of a filmmaker today is to talk about the world surrounding him and, through his movies, to both entertain and raise questions about modern society. — Xavier Durringer
Americans have a certain idea of what films are and the French have a much deeper sense of cinema. The cinémathèque is like a temple for them. And the people who write about it are really intellectuals. It's just a sensibility that they appreciate it. — Jerry Schatzberg
I lived right on the borderline of a black neighborhood. So I could go into the black area and then there'd be these ghetto theaters that you could actually see the new kung fu movie or the new blaxploitation movie or the new horror film or whatever. And then there was also, if you went just a little further away, there was actually a little art house cinema. So I could actually see, you know, French movies or Italian movies, when they came out. — Quentin Tarantino
All my life, I have loved and been inspired by French cinema, and as a studio head it has been my pride and joy to have the ability to bring movies to audiences around the world. — Harvey Weinstein
Every year there's a jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Getting on the jury is very competitive in France. Not because the French love cinema, but because they love to judge. — Craig Ferguson
The Germans were much more graphical. The expressionism is much more than cinema. It was a movement with artists, painters, music and architecture, so it's really graphic and visual. And the French were something else. — Michel Hazanavicius
Blade Runner is one of my favorite films. But, so many thing influenced me that aren't science fiction because they were just good drama. I grew up watching a lot of French cinema. I was in love with The English Patient, and movies that are very romantic in nature and have a positive message. That's a large part of my fingerprint. — J.H. Wyman
French cinema has always been very interesting, and it's still very powerful. I think it goes to show that it's great to still have a cinema that doesn't try to emulate, for example, American cinema. — Louis Leterrier
This is one of the things I don't like so much about French cinema - we have tendency to concentrate on actors and dialogue and we don't care so much about the visual aspect. I love when you use all the elements at your disposal. — Jean-Pierre Jeunet
When I was a young man, my friends and I and all of us in New York were very influenced by French cinema. French cinema played an enormous influence on those of us who wanted to be filmmakers. — Woody Allen
French cinema allows women to look... a certain way and be talented at the same time. — Gina Bellman
People know that I have a great love for cinema. Not just for commercial cinema, but for the “cinema d’auteur.” But to me, two of the great “auteurs” are actually actors and they both happen to be French. One is Alain Delon and the other is Jean-Paul Belmondo. — Harvey Weinstein
I grew up watching a lot of French cinema. — J.H. Wyman
French cinema audiences usually don't express anything. Certainly not satisfaction. — Michel Hazanavicius
In Conclusion
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