France Travel Quotes & Sayings

I had been in France less than 48 hours before that obliging agent of yours had to stop me being run over by a French van full of French chickens because I'd looked the wrong way before crossing the street. Which shows how cunning the Gestapo are. This person I've pulled from beneath the wheels of certain death was expecting traffic to travel on the left side of the road. Therefore she must be British, and is likely to have parachuted into Nazi-occupied France out of an Allied plane. I shall now arrest her as a spy. — Elizabeth Wein

Once I accidentally left my passport in Nice, France, when I was on my way to Prague. Upon arriving in Vienna, after taking an overnight, and being asked to present my travel documents and realizing I forgot them at the hotel, they kicked me off the train and sent me back! — Megalyn Echikunwoke

It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks. — Anatole France

My motto? Don't trust someone who is just as cagey as yourself."
"What kind of detective are you?" "A lousy one and proud of it. I write, remember?"
She looked down at her hand & laughed. "Berretta doesn't make lighters." "Why I was a writer! My life revolved around fiction. I could make something up"
"She looked down at her hand & laughed. "Berretta doesn't make lighters."
"So they're not Tolstoy, they're a little shorter ... Okay, okay a lot. Go ahead, read my mystery series anyway."
"A detective has their boundaries especially me. So mine shifted occasionally ... okay a lot"
"Beat it, Buster. My temper and this mace have a hair trigger."
"Interference could be lethal." I got right up in his face, hissing, "Don't push me, I'm hormonal."
I'm not really a lousy detective, just rough around the edges. — Peggy A. Edelheit

I'd love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I'd want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottom of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose. — Maureen Johnson

I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider. — Rory Bremner

They lied, you know," said Cpl. Allan Richmond. He hugged the
wall next to Owens. Beside him, PFC Bucky Hatton crouched low, a
Browning 1911 semiautomatic gripped tightly in his hand.
"Who?" asked Bart, glad to be out of the wind and rain, even if it
was only for a short time.
"The assholes who said France was beautiful. — Brian W. Matthews

88. People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I've been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it's the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris. — Roman Payne

We are, after all, citizens of the world - a world filled with bacteria, some friendly, some not so friendly. Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonald's? — Anthony Bourdain

Going through the customs dampened them further. Customs inspectors must have a mental twist that makes them suspicious of innocence. Dewy-eyed honeymooners, red-cheeked provincials, and helpless little old ladies lash them into frenzied investigation while slinking Orientals hugging small black bags are passed with scarcely a glance. George and Harriet stood under the letter "R" and watched reproachfully while a muttering little man flung their underclothes and dirty laundry right and left, leaving scattered heaps for them to put back in their suitcases.

"I thought the French were supposed to be so polite," said Harriet indignantly.

Maybe it can't be proven statistically, but it's a safe bet that any given American on his or her first trip to France will at some point remark with indignation that he or she had thought the French were supposed to be so polite. — Jack Iams

I wouldn't mind dying for France, but not for Air France. — Charles De Gaulle

I wore only black socks, because I had heard that white ones were the classic sign of the American tourist. Black ones though,- those'll fool 'em. I supposed I hoped the European locals' conversation would go something like this:

PIERRE: Ha! Look at that tourist with his camera and guidebook!
JACQUES: Wait, but observe his socks! They are...black!
PIERRE: Zut alors! You are correct! He is one of us! What a fool I am! Let us go speak to him in English and invite him to lunch! — Doug Mack

France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that's open for business. — P. J. O'Rourke

Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles. — Mark Twain

The Cubist paintings in the Centre Pompidou in Paris were strange but amazing. The big fat magical cat said they made her eyes hurt. — Jim Shanahan

Veni, vidi, vici. That was easy for Julius Caesar to say; he crossed Italy in a chariot, not on a stupid bike." - Vivia — Leah Marie Brown

We Americans look funny when we're in France because we don't travel, we are fairly un-cultured whereas Europeans go to Africa all the time because it's right there. — Henry Rollins

I collect travel alarm clocks. I was in a flea market in France once, in 1994, and I opened up this beautiful Jaeger-LeCoultre folding eight-day winding clock folded into a beautiful case, and I went, 'Wow, man.' And I've been collecting travel alarm clocks since 1994. — Alec Baldwin

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once. — Anthony Bourdain

THE rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand (in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience,) and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it. Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge
nothing. [Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy] — William Hazlitt

People are always asking me what the world will be like economically in the year 2000. I do know this: in the year 2000, no matter what else happens, there will still be good food in France. — Guy De Rothschild

When you travel from your own country to another country for a long period, you do become aware of the differences. For example, verbal expression is much more important in France - in Finland people don't speak so much. Also, Finnish people say things directly; that kind of direct honesty would be very impolite in France. — Kaija Saariaho

In Europe, where human relations like clothes are supposed to last, one's got to be wearable. In France one has to be interesting, in Italy pleasant, in England one has to fit. — Sybille Bedford

We believed Paris was the start of us. It's the kind of city that makes you think of beginnings, or even juicy middles. Paris is a book to savor, in whole or in part, at any time and in any season. At age ninety or at thirty-four, you can open any chapter and read from there. — Michelle Gable

We trifle with France and labour with Germany, we sentimentalize over Italy and ecstacise over Spain- but England we love. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

[ ... ] I will go to France, to Yugoslavia, to China and continue my profession.'
'As sanitary engineer?'
'No, Monsieur. As adventurer. I will see all the peoples and all the countries in the world. — Bruce Chatwin

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador. — Agnes Repplier

The Spanish government, having run completely out of money, secretly sold the Pyrenees to China, and is now separated from France only by traffic cones. — Dave Barry

I took a gap year myself after high school and worked on a farm near Lyon, France. I stayed with the Vallet family, picked and packed fruit, and discovered that red wine can be a breakfast drink. That led to further travel as a university student. — Nicholas Kristof

A lot of my travel is at least partly work, visiting schools and libraries, especially in France. — Quentin Blake