Bernard Pivot Quotes

As for the French language, it's probably one of the most beautiful in the world. I speak a little bit and I can follow conversations, but I think it will take time to improve myself.

Well, with the French language, which I understood and spoke, however imperfectly, and read in great quantities, at certain times, the matter I suppose was slightly different from either Latin or Greek.

My French is still good. That's a beautiful language and I'm happy to speak it.

For me, French is so rich and so sacred that learning it is like learning a foreign language.

I've been learning French a bit through my work with Longchamp, and I've been in France quite a lot. And I really love how they express themselves. I especially love when something is untranslatable.

I've never really spoken French. I didn't do French lessons at school, so I'm starting from scratch.

I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas!

I work, play and do everything in French.

Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!

I am attached to the French language. I will defend the ubiquitous use of French.

I read French much better than I speak.

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

I'd like to learn French well enough to write in that language.

I feel very close to French culture and to the French humanism, which occasionally one finds, even in the highest places. And therefore, all of my books have been written in French.

With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.

I just love France, I love French people, I love the French language, I love French food. I love their mentality. I just feel like it's me. I'm very French.

French is the language that turns dirt into romance.

Oh, I'm not English, I cannot talk on behalf of an English person. I'm French. I can say about French. They are quite emotional, though, and they talk about their emotions.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

In a country like France, so ancient, their history is full of outstanding people, so they carry a heavy weight on their back. Who could write in French after Proust or Flaubert?

I would love to live in Paris and speak French. That would make me feel glamorous!

When I was young, I used to expect Parisians to wear little black berets, to bicycle about with strings of onions around their necks, and to brandish long sticks of bread, just like they used to do in school textbooks.

France, mother of arts, of warfare, and of laws.

I am typically French.