When in French Quotes

“Hello" and "good-bye" were a pair of bookends, propping up a vast library of blank volumes, void almanacs, novels full of sentiment I couldn't apprehend”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“Language, as much as land, is a place. To be cut off from it is to be, in a sense, homeless.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“A double standard obtains: while learning a foreign language is considered prestigious, acquiring one naturally is stigmatized.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“Supporters of U.S. English argued that foreign languages are like flotation devices, preventing immigrants from entering American waters unassisted. In reality, they buoy not only the prospects of their speakers—scientists have found that bilinguals enjoy a number of advantages, among them enhanced cognitive skills and lower rates of dementia—but also the ideals of the nation.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse. —Charles”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“A long relationship between the right people is a sort of brilliant crime.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“The critic George Steiner defined intimacy as “confident, quasi-immediate translation,” a state of increasingly one-to-one correspondence in which “the external vulgate and the private mass of language grow more and more concordant.” Translation, he explained, occurs both across and inside languages. You are performing a feat of interpretation anytime you attempt to communicate with someone who is not like you.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“A language is the only subject you can't learn by yourself.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“Pamplemousse, it was true, is a pretty great word, especially as a replacement for grapefruit, which, when you think about it, is sort of like saying “poodledog.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“On the plane I had read about a barber taken hostage in Paris, and felt a surge of darkly amused pride. “I’m going to be sixty-five the 22nd of December, I’m about to retire, I don’t want to die with a bullet to the head!” he’d told his captors, according to the news report. “Also, I would prefer that we didn’t tutoyer each other, given my age.”  •”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“Does anyone really think that French teenagers, per the academy’s diktat, are going to trade out sexting for sending textos pornographiques? It’s”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“I love my parents, my friends, my colleagues, the woman who gives me extra guacamole at Chipotle, hydrangeas, podcasts, clean sheet.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language

“It is as unhealthy for the global community to rely too heavily on one language as it is to mass-­cultivate a single crop.”
― Lauren Collins, When in French: Love in a Second Language