Desire Quote by Walter Abish

What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary.…

— Paul Engle

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French.

— Madeleine Albright

I actually took French in school, can speak a bit and I understand the accent and understand the foundation of the language and verb…

— Jesse Marsch

When I got to college I simply decided that I could speak French, because I just could not spend any more time in French…

— Lev Grossman

You know French means like sophisticated, well educated, so far.

— Sophie Marceau

“highly codified and formal foreign language known as French – a language which, according to many French-speakers, almost no one speaks correctly. In the…

— Graham Robb

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age…

— Vivien Leigh

The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of…

— Bernard Pivot

I took about four or five years of French in high school, but I definitely don't speak French as well as I thought I…

— Jeremih

You get the feeling that many of my guests feel that the French language gives them entry into a more cultivated, more intelligent world,…

— Bernard Pivot

French schools follow a national curriculum that includes arduous surveys of French philosophy and literature. Frenchmen then spend the rest of their lives quoting…

— Pamela Druckerman