Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 Quotes

“There are some people who remain your best friends even if you haven’t seen them for ages, and others with whom you start from scratch every time.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“All of us have observed how often our erotic attractions reflect a mysterious but consistent taste, almost as if we were ordering a favorite dish”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“It is the rarest of qualities: to feel something—anything—for someone beside yourself. And in my experience it is rarer still to have empathy for people you don’t know.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“vinegar of the interrogator with the oil of a flirt,”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“AMONG THE DEMONS that taunt a writer before he can open a vein and write in his own blood are the devils that whisper: Are you brave enough to tell the truth?”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Paris is an insomniac’s heaven. There is always something to photograph, something hidden in the shadows. One can see so much more in the darkness than in the light of day.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Sometimes only in retrospect do we realize that we have wasted our best years looking for a lost, inappropriate first love, that our life-changing passion for a particular person was no more than the desire to finally kiss the crooked lower lip of an elementary school principal or the boy on whom we had an unrequited childhood crush.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Love is strange” was what everyone said. It was practically the club motto.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Yvonne had created this place for her and for others like her: born into the wrong life, the wrong body, an innocent victim of God’s mistake.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Let me digress a moment to talk about beginnings. How much simpler life would be if we were wise enough to stop at the first blush of romance, the start of a business transaction or a casual friendship. If we knew enough to pause and think: this is as good as it gets. Everything will go downhill from this moment on. So once again our instincts are the opposite of what they should be, propelling us forward exactly when they should be holding us back.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“The chill lowered my defenses, and I caught a fever. A fever to understand.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“He claimed to be a Marxist, the only one of his claims I believed. He had that Marxist passion for oysters and good Sancerre, and that Marxist paralysis when the waiter brought the check. Already it’s obvious how much the Communists got wrong, overbetting on human high-mindedness, lowballing human desire.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“In part what made the club such a haven was its power to make each person feel temporarily less alone.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“How ashamed most of us would be, if we were reminded of some past behavior, some attitude that we maintained while under the delusion that we were in love—and were loved in return.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“I wanted to know what he thought about my loving a man whose bills were being paid by another woman.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“I was only pretending to be the underpaid, duplicitous, ineffective, struggling teacher of immigrant French. The real Suzanne was the lover and muse of a brilliant artist.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Yes to it all. I had become a puppy that stands on its hind legs and barks when its master fetches its leash.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“You think, Fuck it. The guy’s a genius. He deserves her. What is a woman, after all? You are alive and in Paris.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Two: Distract yourself. Paris has something for everyone. Let’s imagine you are feeling slightly disenchanted with women. Dozens of places will persuade you that a beautiful woman is nothing more than a beautiful man in a dress.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“One: See the two of them everywhere. Contemplate suicide. Would it seem too tourist-y to jump off the Eiffel Tower?”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Hemingway should have stayed in the Midwest. He ruined things for the rest of us, telling all those lies. The lie about courage, the lie about every red-blooded male needing to kill a bull or climb Mount Kilimanjaro.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Don’t order boeuf bourguignon if you’re a vegetarian, don’t venture into the tearooms if you don’t like ladies with lapdogs. Don’t come to Paris if you’re planning a solitary hike through a sexual desert.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Don’t come to Paris if you’re planning a solitary hike through a sexual desert.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Love is blooming on the riverbanks, in the alleys of Montmartre. Park benches exist for lovers exhausted by excessive kissing.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“If I were like Lionel, I would write a book: Obvious Lies, Bad Advice, and Wrong Information I’ve Gotten from Men. A book? An encyclopedia! But in this case my friend was right.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“But did I ever get over her? She came to symbolize everything I wanted and would never have.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“Staying awake seemed like a gift until, as so often happens with gifts, it became a burden.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“I was trying to communicate—with nothing so obvious as a smile, but let’s say a smile of the eyes—my admiration for the chic of women in tuxedos escorting women in evening gowns.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“But love is strange, as they used to say at the Chameleon Club. Even those of us who value intelligence over appearance have discovered, to our chagrin, that a high IQ doesn't necessarily translate into kindness or even conscience.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“I heard he went home to Poughkeepsie and moved back in with his mom.”
― Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932