Stephen Clarke · 685 pages
Rating: (2.6K votes)
“there is a French version of the story, and a true one.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“When a Quebecker is interviewed for French TV, he or she is often subtitled in ‘normal’ French, as if the language they speak in francophone Canada is so barbarous that Parisians won’t be able to understand”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“it must have been hard making a silent movie about a girl who hears voices.)”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“It was Voltaire who said that ‘in a government, you need both shepherds and butchers.’ The problem in France was that the butchers kept killing the shepherds, while the sheep turned cannibal.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“This is probably the most annoying thing of all to the French. Not only do we pronounce the battles incorrectly (Crécy should be ‘Cray-see’ and Waterloo ‘Watt-air-loh’), with Agincourt (‘Ah-zan-coor’) we even get the spelling wrong.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“James II’s second wife, an Italian Catholic princess called Mary (at the time, there was an edict whereby all female royals were to be called Mary to confuse future readers of history books),”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“His posturing for independence came to its logical climax when in 1966 he ordered all foreign troops out of France, arguing that in the event of war, he would not let French soldiers bow to American command as they had been forced to do in World War Two. The way de Gaulle announced his new policy has gone down in history. Apparently the Général phoned the American President, Lyndon Johnson, to tell him that France was opting out of NATO, and that consequently all American military personnel had to be removed from French soil. Taking part in the conference call was Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, and Johnson told Rusk to reply: ‘Does that include those buried in it?”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“Orsini and one of his fellow conspirators were guillotined, and an accomplice called Carlo di Rudio was transported to Devil’s Island, the notorious French prison camp in French Guiana. He escaped and later fought alongside General Custer at Little Big Horn. True to form, he survived.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“Tanacharison (who could relate to the cow because he claimed that the French had boiled and eaten his father),”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“The Frenchmen tried to explain that sexual intercourse between males was taboo (despite anything the Brits might have told them about French sailors),”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“But at the same time, any mention of the history of Quebec rouses burning anti-British and anti-American outrage in a French person’s heart, as if someone was talking about a favourite café of theirs that had been turned into a Starbucks. Canada”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“This is a very French trait. Today, if a big manufacturing company is in trouble, it will parachute in a graduate of one of France’s grandes écoles, someone who has studied business theory and maths for ten years but never actually been inside a factory. The important thing to the French is not experience, it is leadership – or, more exactly, French-style leadership, which mainly involves ignoring advice from anyone with lots of experience but no French grande école on their CV.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“This is of course the Prince of Wales’s motto to this day, though subsequent princes have not adopted John of Bohemia’s custom of fighting while tied up and blind.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“The prospect of one day being hauled out of the canal by yet another old enemy was hard for France to swallow, even more so when British and French defence specialists discussed their exit strategy in case of an overwhelming Soviet attack, and the Brits proposed a massive evacuation via Dunkirk.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“Philippe also brought along musicians - mainly trumpeters and drummers - to scare the enemy. Even then, French music was known to terrify the English.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“Verrazzano must have been turning in his grave. (Except that he didn’t have one because he’d been eaten.)”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“Anglo-Saxon and Franco-Norman came into closer contact, and the linguistic survival techniques on both sides led to the emergence of a supple, adaptable language in which you could invent or half-borrow words and didn’t have to worry so much about whether your sentences had the right verb endings or respected certain strict rules of word order and style (as this sentence proves). The result was the earliest form of what would become English.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
“In French eyes, it was of course doubly wrong to execute a beautiful woman.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from 1000 Years of Annoying the French
Stephen Clarke
Born place: in St. Albans, The United Kingdom
Born date October 15, 1958
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“Se un giorno diventassi ricca
al punto di non aver niente da desiderare,
se un giorno possedessi il mondo
e l'autorità dei Cesari,
sappi che per me niente di tutto ciò
peserà più dell'ala di un moscerino,
se i miei occhi non avranno la tua persona
da guardare!”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1
“What’s wrong with you?” John asks suspiciously. I give him a ‘what chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ look and he explains. “You just woke up.” I nod. “Walked into the kitchen.” Once again I nod, not seeing what the big deal is. “And didn’t rip apart the cabinets like a rabid squirrel looking like coffee.” I shrug at that, I didn’t even remember it. “What the fuck have you done with my best friend?”
― Katelin LaMontagne, quote from Surge
“Sometimes a homeland becomes a tale. We love the story because it is about our homeland and we love our homeland even more because of the story.”
― Refaat Alareer, quote from Gaza Writes Back (#1)
“this you greatly rejoice, though now ofor a little while, if need be, pyou have been 3grieved by various trials, 7that qthe genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though rit is tested by fire, smay be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8twhom having not 4seen you love. uThough now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.”
― quote from The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV
“It hadn’t been Druid magic. It had been the power of a Warrior. There was only one Warrior who she knew could alter a person’s perception of their surroundings with such ease. “Phelan,” she murmured. His power was so great, she and her wyrran had thought they were being attacked by at least a dozen Warriors. Their claws had felt real as they scoured her skin, their roars loud to her ears.”
― Donna Grant, quote from Darkest Highlander
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