Quotes from A Year in the Merde

Stephen Clarke ·  276 pages

Rating: (12.7K votes)


“If they wanted their shit stirred, then stirred their shit was jolly well going to be.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 am alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers’ boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go and sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it a family of excitable kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of urine expelled. Finally, there is a ten-minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.” (p.137)”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“There's no room for human rights in a government waiting room.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“He could have had “dull” tattooed across his forehead, but that would have made him too exciting.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“There is a class of tourists who never seem to see the things they're visiting, I thought. They prefer to look at directions to the next place they're not going to look at.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde



“Only the French, I thought, could attain orgasm by listening to themselves. It was self-inflicted oral sex. A DIY blowjob.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“Words, it seems, are like felt pens. If you don't use them for a while they dry up.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


About the author

Stephen Clarke
Born place: in St. Albans, The United Kingdom
Born date October 15, 1958
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“She lit my soul and inhaled deeply
Flicking my ashes occasionally.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from The Portable Henry Rollins


“ليس الدين مايعيق المرأة , بل الإملاءات الانتقائية التي يقوم بها الذين يتمنون عزل النساء عن العالم”
― Shirin Ebadi, quote from Iran Awakening


“Men have few restraints in expressing to prostitutes—during sex or in any sexual scenario— their real attitudes toward women as a class; they have no reason to feel constrained, since the woman is there to be a woman, period—to be inferior, subservient, and used. She is there because the man wants a woman, someone exactly of her class, someone who is her sex function, not human but an it, a cunt: she is there for that reason, not for anything human in her. Her function is limited, specialized, sex-specific, and intensely and intrinsically dehumanizing.”
― Andrea Dworkin, quote from Right Wing Women


“She lied, sir. She has always lied. I don't think she ever spoke a word of truth. But when she spoke, I believed her.”
― Prosper Mérimée, quote from Carmen


“I'd still be a goofy frog because, guess what, I like being a frog.”
― Dandi Daley Mackall, quote from My Boyfriends' Dogs: The Tales of Adam and Eve and Shirley


Interesting books

Blindness
(145K)
Blindness
by José Saramago
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
(128.1K)
Roots: The Saga of a...
by Alex Haley
A Clash of Kings
(647.2K)
A Clash of Kings
by George R.R. Martin
Island of the Blue Dolphins
(254.6K)
Island of the Blue D...
by Scott O'Dell
Stranger in a Strange Land
(240K)
Stranger in a Strang...
by Robert A. Heinlein
For Whom the Bell Tolls
(216K)
For Whom the Bell To...
by Ernest Hemingway

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.