These quotes will make you want to visit France

From writers to film stars, many have been inspired by France and French life. Here are 20 of our favourite quotes about France

“We’ll always have Paris” – Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

“I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.” – Josephine Baker

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown.” – Gertrude Stein

“Everything ends this way in France – everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs – everything is a pretext for a good dinner.” – French playwright Jean Anouilh

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” – Charles de Gaulle

“Paris is the greatest temple ever built to material joys and the lust of the eyes.” – Henry James

“Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything.” – Steve Martin

“You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden.” – American poet Allen Ginsberg

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” – Claude Monet

“Paris is always a good idea.” – Audrey Hepburn

“The French air cleans up the brain and does good – a world of good.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“France has the only two things towards which we drift as we grow older – intelligence and manners.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.” – Honoré de Balzac

“He who contemplates the depth of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.” – Victor Hugo

“So ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, ‘In what country on earth would you rather live?’ Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I do not believe there is another city on earth so beautiful as Paris nor another people with such an appreciation of the beautiful as the French…” – Edward Hopper

“To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” – Victor Hugo

“To know Paris is to know a great deal.” – Henry Miller

“France has more need of me than I have need of France.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Quarrels in France strengthen a love affair, in America they end it.” – American writer and diarist Ned Rorem

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