Penelope Rowlands

“But there were endless rewards. There was a pervasive sense of adventure, that a surprise was just waiting to be discovered in the next encounter or at the end of the next street. There was the food, of course-even the banal cafe seemed to serve something exquisite-and the artistry with which it was all done, right down to the tiny scenarios in bread and chocolate that were unveiled fortnightly in our boulanger's window. I even came to appreciate-in memory, to bask in-the flirtatious comments made by men in the street, bending every rule in my postfeminist, Anglo-American playbook as I did so, seeing it all as just more joyous street theater in a city that was alive with it, especially in warm weather when everyone was out. I knew that I would remember all of it always, that Paris would be there forever in sharply delineated images,a pack of mental cards to be shuffled through, rearranged, anytime I liked.”
― Penelope Rowlands

“Their expressions were like those caught by Renoir in the faces of The Daughters of Paul Durand-Reul, relaxed, proper, satisfied, slightly ingenue, the background filled with spring color. It was unreal, a garden party far removed from the Revolution that surged beyond the orchard walls. Here, aristocrats dined among white-gloved servants, as in a painting, while songbirds sang in the trees.”
― Penelope Rowlands, Paris Was Ours: Thirty-Two Writers Reflect on the City of Light