#paris

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

#bed #cannonball #cartoon #cartwheel #ceiling

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. ↗

— George Orwell

#freedom #george-orwell #money #poverty #freedom

Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art. ↗

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#hunger #paris #starving #art

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#life

Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past. ↗

— Michael Simkins

#traveling #education

She was ready to be a fugitive with him for the rest of her life - 'Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people' - and when a Parisienne is ready to leave Paris behind forever, that's something. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#parisienne #life

You already are the guy I deserve." "No, Zach," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just the guy you love. ↗

— Marie Sexton

#love

They stamped their own pattern of lovers onto the fabric of Paris. ↗

— Emma Calin

#love #lovers #paris #passion #romance

Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art. ↗

— Wallace Stevens

#comparison #intolerance #itself #other #people

I was backstage in Paris and saw Cindy Crawford doing House Of Style. I thought, I would love to to be in control of my career. ↗