The Paris Novel Quotes

“But I feel as if the world is filled with music I have never heard. I wonder what else I am missing?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Your problem”—he pulled an onion tart from the oven—“is that you always look for reasons to be unhappy.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Not to me. One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“When fortune smiles, you immediately start to worry about how it will end. Why not enjoy the moment?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Django handed her a heap of parsley and she stood next to him, allowing his rhythm to become her own until they were moving together. In the air, the tang of lemons. The aroma of chicken stock. Beeswax mingling with butter. Chocolate melting into oranges. Her spirits rose with the scents swirling through the kitchen.
They spoke little; they had no need. They were a team, their minds melded more effortlessly than Stella had imagined possible. They massaged butter into chickens, boned fish, opened oysters. Django set a flat of speckled eggs on the counter. Next to it, a ceramic bowl. He opened his hands and Stella broke the eggs, dozens of them, across his outstretched fingers, watching yolks separate from whites. It occurred to her that she had tortured herself for no reason. She was happy.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“That is the most expensive spice in the world. It comes from the Valley of Flowers, where everyone's hands are red from separating the saffron from the blossoms. Each flower has just three strands, so it takes seventy thousand flowers to make a single pound.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“It is a beautiful day. You will walk through the Tuileries to the Seine and along the Seine to the Pont des Arts. Cross the bridge and walk up the boulevard Saint-Germain to Les Deux Magots. Order a glass of Chablis, very cold, and a dozen Belon oysters.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“vision she’d had. Volumes were stacked everywhere: on shelves, in great heaps on the floor, in a zigzag line running up a ramshackle flight of stairs. Books owned the space. She took a long, deep sniff; this was not the industrial scent of ink, paper, and cleaning fluid of ordinary bookstores. She took another breath: People had eaten sandwiches and onion soup here, they’d drunk wine and beer as they paged through the books, fallen in love around them. Moving into the shop, she noticed a small blond girl roaming around, picking up volumes with grubby hands. Nobody seemed to mind; nobody stopped her. These books were not destined to sit sedately on tables or be shelved in alphabetical order; these books were meant to become part of your life.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“whenever a woman smiles, her dress should smile with her.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“It sounds so much better in French.” “Most things do.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Victorine-Louise Meurent was a favorite of all the major painters of the time. Known as La Crevette—the shrimp—because of her small stature and bright-red hair, she had modeled for many artists of the era.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“it: be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“These months in Paris had opened all her senses; she now needed so much more.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that,”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Paris, unlike her native New York, seemed capable of savoring the present while appreciating the past.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“You have good rhythm and great patience,” he said. “Two of the four things required to make a cook.” “What are the other two?” “Good ingredients. And imagination.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Bookshops made her anxious. Each volume was like an eager animal at the pound, striving for attention, hoping for a home. “Take me, take me,” they called out, until the chorus grew so loud she had to turn and flee.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Just think: If I had taught you to cook when you were a little girl, we could have made a restaurant together”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“In her walks through Paris, Stella had not seen anything that remotely resembled Le Sauvage. The house seemed to merge with the landscape, walking so lightly on the land it nearly vanished. The interior had the same effect; as they entered, the walls seemed to melt away. It was an astonishing architectural trick, creating the illusion that they were not going inside a building but merely inhabiting a new space.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Stella remembered watching Celia cook, thinking how Olney’s approach was entirely different. Celia would stride into the kitchen like a conquering hero, a warrior intent on subduing ingredients. For her, food was a weapon, and she was interested only in the final result. Olney, on the other hand, was intent on enjoying the journey. Patrick and Baldwin both found pleasure in the kitchen, but for Olney, cooking was much more than that. It seemed that he didn’t just enjoy cooking; he was totally absorbed in it. It must be, she thought, the way he painted, and she understood that he had simply traded his brush for a knife.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“But they did not discuss the wine. When she remarked on it later, Jules shrugged. “What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“You disappoint me.” He scowled at her. “I did not believe you could be so lily-livered.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Each volume was like an eager animal at the pound, striving for attention, hoping for a home. “Take me, take me,” they called out, until the chorus grew so loud she had to turn and flee.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Didn’t you say you were a copy editor? Isn’t that a fancy term for literary detective? Why don’t you see what you can find out?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“He was like a jazz musician, joyfully improvising, imagining tastes that ordinary people could not. He pulled ingredients apart and reconstructed them in endlessly surprising ways: clear little cubes that tasted of just-picked tomatoes still warm from the sun, or cheese puffs that floated into your mouth and simply vanished, leaving a trail of flavor in their wake. One day he melted chocolate, mixed in chilies, and wrapped the sauce around tart orange ice; people begged for seconds.
She'd never met anyone like him, and as she watched him cook, Stella saw that in the kitchen all the qualities that made him a poor choice as a parent or a partner turned into strengths. Utterly unafraid of failure, he was willing to try anything. It was the source of his creativity. He was a confident person who pleased himself; if it didn't work out, he simply moved on.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Remembering the careful way the cooks she'd met chose their ingredients--- the snails at L'Ami Louis, Taeb's saffron, Baldwin's asparagus--- Stella thought Django was more like a magician, conjuring dishes out of thin air. By the time George nudged Stella aside to poke his nose in the door, Lucie was strewing crisp breadcrumbs on top of a thick vegetable potage, and Django was stirring a tart lemon pudding. Downstairs, customers lingered, people who had intended on stopping in for a moment stayed on as increasingly seductive scents wafted through the shop.
Unwilling to admit that he was pleased, George tasted the pudding and grumbled, "You've used up all the eggs. And I wanted gingerbread for tonight's reading."
"Gingerbread!" Django pulled a face. "Nous sommes en France. I will make something more appropriate." Still standing in the doorway, Stella wondered how he would manage this; he'd used everything in the kitchen except an aged pound cake resembling a rock, a handful of desiccated dried apricots, and the sour milk.
"We'll make some coffee." Django was tearing up the stale cake. As she watched, he produced curds from the sour milk, cooked the apricots into jam, and soaked the cake in coffee. With a flourish, he pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "J'ai toujours du chocolat sur moi." He melted the chocolate, stirring in the last of the coffee. "I always have chocolate. You never know when you will need it." Against her better judgement, Stella was charmed.
Lucie stood close by, watching him layer the coffee-drenched cake with jam, curds, and chocolate, grabbing each spoon as he finished. "Will you make this for my birthday?" she asked.
"No."
"Please," she begged.
"For your birthday I will make something better.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel