Vous Quotes & Sayings

At first the relevance of chattel slavery to libertarian ideals was noted only in individual passages of isolated pamphlets. — Bernard Bailyn

Vous travaillez pour l'armee, madame?' (You are working for the army?), a Frenchwoman said to me early in the Vietnam war, on hearing I had three sons. — Adrienne Rich

In life I would much prefer to be sinned upon than the sinner. It is easier, vous comprenez? With the clear conscience one sleeps very well. The sinner may deny it ... but in his heart he knows. He does not deserve to be happy. — Nikki Sex

If you possess a library and a garden, you have everything you need. (translation from the French) Si vous possedez une bibliotheque et un jardin, vous avez tout ce qu'il vous faut. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

If they knew how much you kept inside to keep from hurting them, but hurting yourself instead, maybe they'd love you more. — Darnell Lamont Walker

Jim pushed against my leg to peer inside. "Well, now, there's a sight you don't see every day."

"Voulez-vous cesser de me cracker dessuspendant que vous parlez," I said, my heart pounding wildly.

"There's the spitting-in-my-face saying," Jim said softly to itself.

"J'ai une grenouille dans mon bidet!" I growled.

"And the frogs."

"T'as une tete afaire sauter les plaques d'egouts," I wailed.

"Face like a manhole cover. Can merde be very far behind?"

"Merde!" I bellowed.

"You can say that again," Jim said. — Katie MacAlister

Tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice! — Mark Twain

Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
[Fr., Hatez-vous lentement; et, sans perdre courage,
Vingt fois sur le metier remettez votre ouvrage.] — Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Vous eprouves trop d'emotion, Hastings, It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?'
'Good heavens, Poirot,' I cried, 'this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?'
'You have no sense of proportion Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one's clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder. — Agatha Christie

He was sunset against the mountains, strong, vibrant, dangerous, and yet somehow sheltering, protective. And married.
Picnic, meet rain. — Devon Monk

Do you wish people to speak well of you?
Then do not speak at all yourself.
[Fr., Voulez-vous qu'on croie du bien de vous?
N'en dites point.] — Blaise Pascal

He then expounded a remarkable theory, which had occurred to him while he was playing the clarinet during one of the power cuts that the French electricity board arranges at regular intervals. Electricity, he said, is a matter of science and logic. Classical music is a matter of art and logic. Vous voyez? Already one sees a common factor. And when you listen to the disciplined and logical progression of some of Mozart's work, the conclusion is inescapable: Mozart would have made a formidable electrician. — Peter Mayle

As we trudge back through the woods, we reach a boulder, and both Gale and I turn our heads in the same direction, like a pair of dogs catching a scent on the wind. Cressida notices and asks what lies that way. We admit, without acknowledging each other, it's our old hunting rendez-vous place. She wants to see it, even after we tell her it's nothing really.
Nothing but a place where I was happy, I think. — Suzanne Collins

My friend says touche way too much. He's a touche bag. — Demetri Martin

The art of flirtation is dying. A man and woman are either in love these days or just friends. In the realm of love, reticence and sophistication should go hand in hand, for one of the joys of life is discovery. Nowadays, instead of progressing from vous to tu, from Mister to Jim, it's 'darling' and 'come to my place' in the first hour. — Marya Mannes

I have heard of a monk who in his cell had a glorious vision of Jesus revealed to him. Just then a bell rang, which called him away to distribute loaves of bread among the poor beggars at the gate. He was sorely tried as to whether he should lose a scene so inspiring. He went to his act of mercy; and when he came back the vision remained more glorious than ever. — Theodore L. Cuyler

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: "Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!" He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence. — Kate Chopin

And then?"
"And then," said Poirot. "We will talk! Je vous assure, Hastings - there is nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation! Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me once, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking. It is also an infallible means of discovering that which he wishes to hide. A human being, Hastings, cannot resist the opportunity to reveal himself and express his personality which conversation gives him. Every time he will give himself away."
"What do you expect Cust to tell you?"
Hercule Poirot smiled.
"A lie," he said. "And by it, I shall know the truth! — Agatha Christie

But it is important to know this, to know your roots. To know where you started as a person. If not, your own life seems unreal to you. Like a puzzle. Vous comprenez? Like you have missed the beginning of a story and now you are in the middle of it, trying to understand. — Khaled Hosseini

To Americans, time always sounds like a parade chez vous [at your house], a triumphant parade, like armies with banners entering a town . . . as though with enough time and all that fearful energy and virtue you people have, everything will be settled, solved, put in its place. . . . I mean all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe. — James Baldwin

PISTOL-
Say'st thou me so? is that a ton of moys? Come hither, boy: ask me this slave in French What is his name.
Boy-
Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?
French Soldier-
Monsieur le Fer.
Boy-
He says his name is Master Fer.
PISTOL-
Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him: discuss the same in French unto him.
Boy-
I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk. — William Shakespeare

- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position? - c'est le pigeon, Joseph. Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap, lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. - C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re. - Il croit? - Mon pere, oui. — James Joyce

Excellent, I think I see a few veela cousins," said George, craning his neck for a better look. "They'll need help understanding our English customs, I'll look after them ... "
"Not so fast, Your Holeyness," said Fred, and darting past the gaggle of middle-aged witches heading the procession, he said, "Here - permettez-moi to assister vous," to a pair of pretty French girls, who giggled and allowed him to escort them inside. George was left to deal with the middle-aged witches. — J.K. Rowling

Ne dites pas trop de mal de vous-meme: on vous croirait. - Don't talk too badly of yourself: they ight believe you. — Andre Maurois

Die, die we all pass away,
But don't wear a frown coz it's really okay,
And you might try to hide, And you might try to pray,
But we all end up remains of the day. — Danny Elfman - The Corpse Bride

Because too little of something is just as dangerous as too much. — V.E Schwab

When I was seventeen you said you wanted to perform an autopsy on me, to crack open my ribcage and squeeze my heart until it burst between your fingers." What is that - if not flirting? She lifts her head off a pillow to near me, propping her elbows on the mattress. "That was me hating you, Richard. I dreamed of your death." "You dreamed of clutching my heart," I rebut. "Of killing you," she emphasizes. I lean closer to her, our eyes locking. "Vous m'aimiez." You loved me. — Becca Ritchie

I was growing tired of all the fussing and prevaricating, of the stolen hours and the secret rendez-vous; of the small indignities and broad discomfort that are part and parcel of adultery. — Vicki Baum

Don't let the actions of a few determine the way you feel about an entire group. Remember, not all German's were Nazis. — Erin Gruwell

I would much prefer to be sinned upon than the sinner. It is easier, comprenez-vous? With the clear conscience one sleeps very well. — Nikki Sex

Stories hold conflict and contrast, highs and lows, life and death, and the human struggle and all kinds of things. — David Lynch

Vous perdez votre temps! (You're wasting your time.) — Kathleen Flinn

However you learn and whatever your circumstances, an education that prepares you for the world is every child's right. — Kandyse McClure

My friend, I've been lying all my life. Even when I was telling the truth. I never spoke for the truth, but only for myself, I knew that before, but only now do I see ... Oh, where are those friends whom I have insulted with my friendship all my life? And everyone, everyone! Savez-vous, perhaps I'm lying now; certainly I'm also lying now. The worst of it is that I believe myself when I lie. The most difficult thing in life is to live and not lie ... and ... and not believe one's own lie, yes, yes, that's precisely it! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I believe that there are dark and difficult days ahead, and you won't be playing for an increase in company dividens - you will be playing for the survival of a nation, and if you fail, it will mean the end of the world you know. You will not suffer alone - — Wilbur Smith

Par exemple! I never had to ask. You were always there under my feet, like a troublesome cat." "You mean like an adoring dog. And just as soon as Ratignolle appeared on the scene, then it WAS like a dog. 'Passez! Adieu! Allez vous-en! — Kate Chopin

The French, it seems to me, strike a happy balance between intimacy and reserve. Some of this must be helped by the language, which lends itself to graceful expression even when dealing with fairly basic subjects ... And there's that famously elegant subtitle from a classic Western.
COWBOY: "Gimme a shot of red-eye."
SUBTITLE: "Un Dubonnet, s'il vous plait."
No wonder French was the language of diplomacy for all those years. — Peter Mayle

Vous avez, une vie bien vivre ... You have one life, live it well! — Timothy Pina

The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singular world of tu. — Peter Mayle