At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
I remember how, when I lived in Paris, there was a McDonald's, and I'd always see Americans eating there and think, 'Why do they come all the way to Paris and eat at McDonald's?'
It's been federal law for over two centuries that the child of an American born abroad is a citizen - a natural born citizen.
My father is an expatriate American; he fell in love with New Zealand in his youth and never went home.
The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.
No American ever dies in the country in which he was born.
When I moved to Europe 12 years ago, my biggest concern was whether I'd ever speak decent French. Practically every American I knew came to visit, many saying they dreamed of living here, too.
Sure enough at Oxford, I was another Yank half a step behind.
The Narrator of 'A Sport and a Pastime' is an American photographer living in a borrowed house in what he calls 'the real France,' Autun, a small town where he hopes to take some career-changing photographs in the spirit of Atget.
I guess the biggest surprise I got going to Iran was that the Iranians really liked me as an American.
If I really had to pinpoint my happiest days out of the United States, I'd choose those Fifties military days in Britain, particularly my time in South Ruislip. I had a ball.
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
I was lucky that one of my first movies, 'One Million Years B.C.' was made in Europe by a British company. The Brits, and a lot of the rest of Europe, seemed to really love exotic women. The fact that I was American and exotic just made me more appealing to them.
Traveling through France in regular times, for better or worse, I am simply perceived as an American.
