At a tender age, I commandeered half a quire of foolscap from my father's desk and sat down to write a book. ...I had observed on ...printed fly leaves the words "By the author of, etc." ...So under the title of my prospective work I wrote: By the author of "Les Miserables," "The Woman in White," "Dombey and Son," "Tom Brown's Schooldays" and "Our Life in the Highlands," the last-named being an opus of good Queen Victoria. I had not read all these works but they existed on our bookshelves, and I hoped to produce something worthy of comparison.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Bonnie Lee: How can you do that? Geoff Carter: What?... Bonnie: Eat that steak. Geoff: What's the matter with it? Bonnie: It was his. Geoff: Look, what do you want me to do, have it stuffed? Bonnie: Haven't you got any feelings? Don't you realize he's dead? Geoff: Who's dead? Les Peters: Yeah, who's dead? Bonnie: Joe. Geoff: Joe, who's Joe? Les: Anybody know Joe? Bonnie: What's the matter with you. He was sitting here with us, talking and laughing, just a few minutes ago. [Geoff, Les, et al., ignore her and start singing]LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Frenchmen! This is a rehearsal. Hold those policemen. A famous film actor will presently come running out of this house. He is an ...arch-criminal but he must escape. You are asked to prevent them from grabbing him. This is part of the plot. French crowd! I want you to make a free passage for him from door to car. Remove its driver! Start the motor! Hold those policemen, knock them down, sit on them--we pay them for it. This is a German company, so excuse my French. Les preneurs de vues, my technicians and armed advisers are already among you. Attention! I want a clean getaway. That's all. Thank you. I am coming out now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I get a little Verlaine for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do... think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Negres of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine after practically going to sleep with quandarinessLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The careers of Napoleon and de Gaulle bear comparison, though it is always unwise to take such imposed similarities too far. But n...evertheless, both their careers were born out of social upheaval and military disaster. It is astonishing that Napoleon, a mere youthful artillery officer from despised Corsica, should have pulled together a country reeling from the horrors of revolution; survived the ignominy of defeat in Egypt; created a new France, constitutionally, legally, and organizationally; brought emperors and kings to their knees; allied himself through marriage with one of the proudest European dynasties; fought a series of impeccably planned and devastatingly executed campaigns; had the whole world within his grasp ... and, so very nearly, held it there. It is equally extraordinary that Charles de Gaulle, a brilliant though suspect tank commander, should have snatched from the fall of France a personal triumph. Who else, one wonders, could have continued to assert the position of himself and his country in the face of dislike and mistrust? Who else, like Napoleon returning from Elba, could have emerged from the self-imposed exile of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises to restore France's confidence? Both men were seized with the concept of la gloire. Both took that concept to the ultimate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The deer and the dachshund are one. Well, the gods grow out of the weather.... The people grow out of the weather; The gods grow out of the people. Encore, encore, encore les dieux . . .LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint. Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosoph...y quenches them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O months of blossoming, months of transfigurations, May without cloud and June stabbed to the heart,... I shall not ever forget the lilacs or the roses Nor those the spring has kept folded away apart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especial...ly during youth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »