Quotes from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

“It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same.”
― quote from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

“Such is the nature of an expatriate life. Stripped of romance, perhaps that's what being an expat is all about: a sense of not wholly belonging. [...] The insider-outsider dichotomy gives life a degree of tension. Not of a needling, negative variety but rather a keep-on-your-toes sort of tension that can plunge or peak with sudden rushes of love or anger. Learning to recognise and interpret cultural behaviour is a vital step forward for expats anywhere, but it doesn't mean that you grow to appreciate all the differences.”
― quote from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

“The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo. …where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings?” (pp.281-82)”
― quote from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

“I know of no other place that is so fascinating yet so frustrating, so aware of the world and its own place within it but at the same time utterly insular. A country touched by nostalgia, with a past so great - so marked by brilliance and achievement - that French people today seem both enriched and burdened by it. France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship.”
― quote from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

“You'd think the sight of beautiful Place Vendôme would lift my spirits but oddly the arc of jewellery - so obviously beyond the means of a jobless person like me - only depresses me more. I plod on feeling confused, guilty even, that I should feel unhappy in a place that looks like paradise.”
― quote from Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

Popular quotes

“لم أكن أفكر جيدا .. كنت أخاف مما يمكن أن أفكر به. ولذلك كان عدم التفكير أكثر أمانا. ولكن الآن بدأت أعرف أن الفكر مثل جنين داخل الجسد .. لابد أن يولد .. وإذا مات داخلك، فإن جزءا منك يموت أيضا”
― quote from Inherit the Wind

“Yo creo en las decisiones irracionales, fugaces, que hacen que la vida sea interesante. Y la vida tiene que ser interesante, ya que tenemos sólo una de ellas para vivir.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

“Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it's a little fixed. We all think the annual draft lottery is probably rigged, we all accept that the league aggressively wants big market teams to advance deep into the playoffs, and we all concede that certain marquee players are going to get preferential treatment for no valid reason. The outcomes of games aren't predeteremined or scripted but there are definitely dark forces who play with our reality. There are faceless puppet masters who pull strings and manipulate the purity of justice. It's not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it's certainly not fair. And that's why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life.”
― Chuck Klosterman, quote from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Failure is a greater teacher than success”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, quote from Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

“Let me see if I understand this," Jaenelle said.
[...]
"You and Falonar have decided to go your own ways," Jaenelle said with a patience that made Surreal wary.
She shrugged. "It was a mutual decision." The bastard.
"Uh-huh. So you packed your bags..."
"It was his eyrie," Surreal cut in. "I certainly didn't want to live there." And I didn't want to watch him courting Nurian in ways he never thought to court me.
"...and left Ebon Rih without telling Lucivar."
"Who would have strung Falonar up by the heels"... or by the balls, which might have been interesting to watch... "before having a little chat."
"No," Jaenelle said, "he would have waited for Chaosti to show up, and then he would have strung Falonar up by the heels." She paused. "Maybe by the heels."
Which just confirmed why Surreal had slipped away from Ebon Rih before Lucivar had time to notice. As the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih dealing with a Warlord Prince who was his second-in-command, Lucivar would have been nasty and explosive. Chaosti, the Warlord Prince of the Dea al Mon and a kinsman on her mother's side, would have approached Falonar with the protective viciousness that made Warlord Princes such a deadly facet of Blood society.
Dealing with the male relatives she'd acquired since coming to Kaeleer was so much fun.
"And you entered the Hall through one of the side doors to avoid seeing Daemon, who's working in his study and would have met you before you got out of the great hall."
Feeling more wary by the minute, Surreal did her best to look indifferent. "No reason for him to get involved in this." Sweet Darkness, please don't let him think this is any business of his. "Besides, I don't need either of them getting all snarly and protective over something that was a mutual decision."
"So instead of mentioning this to either of them, you went to the Keep and told Saetan."
Surreal winced. "Well, I figured I should tell someone before leaving Ebon Rih."
"Uh-huh. So you told the High Lord of Hell, the patriarch of this family, the man from whom Daemon and Lucivar inherited the temper you were trying to avoid." Jaenelle pushed the quilt aside and swung her legs over the side of the couch to sit up straight. "Did I miss something ?”
― Anne Bishop, quote from Dreams Made Flesh

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