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

“...the solution to the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people.”
― Hannah Arendt, quote from The Origins of Totalitarianism


“Insane", he says simply. "Hopeless. The king is a saint and cannot rule, and his son his a devil and should not.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Red Queen


“taking your son to a whorehouse, thought”
― Caddy Rowland, quote from House of Pleasure


“immediately before a great victory, one will often experience some form of difficulty. The key is to maintain your focus and keep on believing.”
― Robin S. Sharma, quote from Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari


“A complex world of intrigues and power play among couples has
combined to deny young people the love and attention they truly
deserve, more and more teenagers are leaving home to peer up with
bad influence which eventually lands them in jail for the lucky ones
and six feet under for the not so lucky.”
― Oche Otorkpa, quote from The Unseen Terrorist


Interesting books

I Am Pilgrim
(82.2K)
I Am Pilgrim
by Terry Hayes
Being Nikki
(27.1K)
Being Nikki
by Meg Cabot
A Crown of Swords
(100.9K)
A Crown of Swords
by Robert Jordan
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
(5.6K)
Seven Pillars of Wis...
by T.E. Lawrence
Bad Moon Rising
(25K)
Bad Moon Rising
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
It Ain't Me, Babe
(25.4K)
It Ain't Me, Babe
by Tillie Cole

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.