#paris

If you see the world as gloomily as I see it, the only thing to do is laugh or shoot yourself. ↗

— John le Carré

#the-art-of-fiction-no- #art

If I walked down by different streets to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon I could walk through the gardens and then go to the Musee du Luxembourg where the great paintings were that have now mostly been transferred to the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume. I went there nearly every day for the Cezannes and to see the Manets and the Monets and the other Impressionists that I had first come to know about in the Art Institute at Chicago. I was learning something from the painting of Cezanne that made writing simple true sentences far from enough to make the stories have the dimensions that I was trying to put in them. I was learning very much from him but I was not articulate enough to explain it to anyone. Besides, it was a secret. But if the light was gone in the Luxembourg I would walk up through the gardens and stop in at the studio apartment where Gertrude Stein lived at 27 rue de Fleurus. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#ernest-hemingway #france #museums #paris #art

I know the consequences, Manon,” Ilyse conceded. “I know the fate you endured might one day be my own. But I refuse to be a prisoner for the rest of my life. ↗

— Melika Dannese Lux

#courage #defiance #freedom #ilyse-charpentier #iron-will

A beautiful white silk scarf was around her neck, tucked below the fur collar. Her lips were well painted into a bright red cupid’s bow. Cute as hell I always told myself, with a tinge of regret. She had a steady girlfriend. ↗

— Paul A. Myers

#left-bank #paris #roaring- #beauty

...churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply. ↗

— Stephen R. Covey

#gospel #parishioners #spiritual #business

I wish I could go to Paris right now. ↗

— Emily J. Proctor

#paris #wishing #dreams

The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#intelligence

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

— Michael Simkins

#traveling #education

Now you are walking in Paris all alone in the crowd As herds of bellowing buses drive by Love's anguish tightens your throat As if you were never to be loved again If you lived in the old days you would enter a monastery You are ashamed when you discover yourself reciting a prayer You make fun of yourself and like the fire of Hell your laughter crackles The sparks of your laugh gild the depths of your life It's a painting hanging in a dark museum And sometimes you go and look at it close up ↗

— Guillaume Apollinaire

#city #crowd #laughing #laughter #love

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