People From Marseille

"Zidane was from another planet. When Zidane stepped onto the pitch, the 10 other guys just got suddenly better. It is that simple."

"I would give up five players to have Zidane in my squad."

"He is the best player I've seen... Playing alongside him was a crazy thing! Supporters arrived earlier at the Bernabeu just to see him warm-up."

"Technically, I think he is the king of what's fundamental in the game - control and passing. I don't think anyone can match him when it comes to controlling or receiving the ball."

"Zidane is unique. The ball flows with him. He is more like a dancer than a football player."

"Zidane is one of the greatest players in history, a truly magnificent player."

"He dominates the ball, he is a walking spectacle and he plays as if he had silk gloves on each foot. He reminds me a bit of myself, although I was a bit quicker. He makes it worthwhile going to the stadium -- he's one of the best I have ever seen."

"Zidane is the master. Over the past 10 years, there's been no-one like him, he has been the best player in the world."

"It's hard to explain but I have a need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard. And this desire never to stop fighting is something else I learnt in the place where I grew up."

"I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through the day. Music was important. Football was the easy part."

"It was my father who taught us that an immigrant must work twice as hard as anybody else, that he must never give up."

"You blessed my life! Never on me had rested woman's love. My mother even could not find me fair: I had no sister; and, when grown a man, I feared the mistress who would mock at me. But I have had your friendship — grace to you A woman's charm has passed across my path."

"I suspect that the playwright Edmond Rostand accurately portrays his ability as a swordsman; Cyrano was something of a legend in his own time."

"Je recule Ébloui de me voir moi même tout vermeil Et d’avoir, moi, le coq, fait élever le soleil."

"Et sonnant d’avance sa victoire, Mon chant jaillit si net, si fier, si peremptoire Que l’horizon, saisi d'un rose tremblement, M’obéit."

"Sans doute Je peux apprendre à coqueriquer: je glougloute."

"Malebranche dirait qu’il n’y a plus une âme: Nous pensons humblement qu’il reste encor des cœurs."

"You strip from me the laurel and the rose! Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing I hold against you all, and when, tonight, I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed, Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue, One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch, I bear away despite you … My panache."

"What say you? It is useless? Ay, I know But who fights ever hoping for success? I fought for lost cause, and for fruitless quest! You there, who are you! — You are thousands! Ah! I know you now, old enemies of mine! Falsehood! Have at you! Ha! and Compromise! Prejudice, Treachery! … Surrender, I? Parley? No, never! You too, Folly, — you? I know that you will lay me low at last; Let be! Yet I fall fighting, fighting still!"

"Rhymer, brawler, and musician, Famed for his lunar expedition, And the unnumbered duels he fought, — And lover also, — by interposition! — Here lies Hercule Savinien De Cyrano de Bergerac, Who was everything, yet was naught. I cry you pardon, but I may not stay; See, the moon-ray that comes to call me hence! I would not bid you mourn less faithfully That good, brave Christian: I would only ask That when my body shall be cold in clay You wear those sable mourning weeds for two, And mourn awhile for me, in mourning him."

"I loved but once, yet twice I lose my love!"

"No, In fairy tales When to the ill-starred Prince the lady says "I love you!" all his ugliness fades fast — But I remain the same, up to the last!"

"Live, for I love you!"

"Call no one. Leave me not; When you come back, I should be gone for aye."

"Valvert: Villain, clod-poll, flat-foot, refuse of the earth! Cyrano: [taking off his hat and bowing as if the Vicomte had been introducing himself] Ah? … And mine, Cyrano-Savinien-Hercule of Bergerac! Valvert: [exasperated] Buffoon! Cyrano: [giving a sudden cry, as if seized with a cramp] Aï! … Valvert: [who had started toward the back, turning] What is he saying now? Cyrano: [screwing his face as if in pain] It must have leave to stir … it has a cramp! It is bad for it to be kept still so long! Valvert: What is the matter? Cyrano: My rapier prickles like a foot asleep! Valvert: [drawing] So be it! Cyrano: I shall give you a charming little hurt! Valvert: [contemptous] Poet! Cyrano: Yes, a poet, … and, to such an extent, that while we fence, I will, hop!, extempore, compose you a ballade! Valvert: A ballade? Cyrano: I fear you do not know what that is. Valvert: But … Cyrano: [as if saying a lesson] The ballade is composed of three stanzas of eight lines each … Valvert: [stamps with his feet] Oh! Cyrano: [continuing] And an envoi of four. Valvert: You … Cyrano: I will with the same breath fight you and compose one. And, at the last line, I will hit you. Valvert: Indeed you will not! Cyrano: No? … [Declaiming] Ballade of the duel which in Burgundy house Monsieur de Bergerac fought with a jackanape … Valvert: And what is that, if you please? Cyrano: That is the title. [ … ] Cyrano: [closing his eyes a second] Wait. I am settling upon the rhymes. There. I have them. [in declaiming, he suits the action to the word] Of my broad felt made lighter, I cast my mantle broad, And stand, poet and fighter, To do and to record. I bow, I draw my sword … En garde! With steel and wit I play you at first abord … At the last line, I hit! [They begin fencing] You should have been politer; Where had you best be gored? The left side or the right — ah? Or next your azure cord? Or where the spleen is stored? Or in the stomach pit? Come we to quick accord … At the last line, I hit! You falter, you turn whiter? You do so to afford Your foe a rhyme in "iter"? … You thrust at me — I ward — And balance is restored. Laridon! Look to your spit! … No, you shall not be floored Before my cue to hit! [He announces solemnly] Envoi Prince, call upon the Lord! … I skirmish … feint a bit … I lunge! … I keep my word! [The Vicomte staggers, Cyrano bows.] At the last line, I hit!"

"Valvert: Your … your nose is … errr … Your nose … is very large! Cyrano: [gravely] Very. Valvert: [laughs] Ha! Cyrano: [imperturbable] Is that all? Valvert: But … Cyrano: Ah, no, young man, that is not enough! You might have said, dear me, there are a thousand things … varying the tone … For instance … Here you are: — Aggressive: "I, monsieur, if I had such a nose, nothing would serve but I must cut it off!" Amicable: "It must be in your way while drinking; you ought to have a special beaker made!" Descriptive: "It is a crag! … a peak! … a promontory! … A promontory, did I say? … It is a peninsula!" Inquisitive: "What may the office be of that oblong receptacle? Is it an inkhorn or a scissor-case?" Mincing: "Do you so dote on birds, you have, fond as a father, been at pains to fit the little darlings with a roost?" Blunt: "Tell me, monsieur, you, when you smoke, is it possible you blow the vapor through your nose without a neighbor crying "The chimney is afire!"?" Anxious: "Go with caution, I beseech, lest your head, dragged over by that weight, should drag you over!" Tender: "Have a little sun-shade made for it! It might get freckled!" Learned: "None but the beast, monsieur, mentioned by Aristophanes, the hippocampelephantocamelos, can have borne beneath his forehead so much cartilage and bone!" Off-Hand: "What, comrade, is that sort of peg in style? Capital to hang one's hat upon!" Emphatic: No wind can hope, O lordly nose, to give the whole of you a cold, but the Nor-Wester!" Dramatic: "It is the Red Sea when it bleeds!" Admiring: "What a sign for a perfumer's shop!" Lyric: "Art thou a Triton, and is that thy conch?" Simple: "A monument! When is admission free?" Deferent: "Suffer, monsieur, that I should pay you my respects: That is what I call possessing a house of your own!" Rustic: "Hi, boys! Call that a nose? You don't gull me! It's either a prize parrot or a stunted gourd!" Military: "Level against the cavalry!" Practical: "Will you put up for raffle? Indubitably, sir, it will be the feature of the game!" And finally in parody of weeping Pyramus: "Behold, behold the nose that traitorously destroyed the beauty of its master! and is blushing for the same!" — That, my dear sir, or something not unlike, is what you could have said to me, had you the smallest leaven of letters or wit; but of wit, O most pitiable of objects made by God, you never had a rudiment, and of letters, you have just those that are needed to spell "fool!" — But, had it been otherwise, and had you been possessed of the fertile fancy requisite to shower upon me, here, in this noble company, that volley of sprightly pleasentries, still should you not have delivered yourself of so much as a quarter of the tenth part of the beginning of the first … For I let off these good things at myself, and with sufficient zest, but do not suffer another to let them off at me!""

"To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero."

"After his first training session in heaven, George Best, from his favourite right wing, turned the head of God who was filling in at left-back. I would love him to save me a place in his team - George Best that is, not God."

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

"He was the only player I saw who the manager never had a go at. We all went to a film premiere and were told to wear black ties. Eric turned up in a cream lemon suit with Nike trainers. The manager told him that he looked fantastic!"

""The three million people in the street, they go to the bank, withdraw their money, and the banks collapse...That's a real threat, there's a real revolution," he said in the video on the web. At the time, French workers were taking to the streets to protests France's pensions reform."

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport. Soon the science will not only be able to slow down the ageing of the cells, soon the science will fix the cells to the state. And so we will become eternal. Only accidents, crimes, wars, will still kill us but unfortunately, crimes, wars, will multiply. I love football. Thank you. (The first sentence is itself a quotation from King Lear)"

"Because arguing with racist people is like playing chess with a pigeon: It doesn't matter how good you are! The pigeon is going to knock all the pieces down and shit on the board and parade around like he's won. (the "Playing chess with pigeons..." statement is not something that originated with Eric Cantona but was first created by an Amazon product reviewer and is often repeated by others, per Snopes.)"

"I feel close to the rebelliousness and vigour of the youth here. Perhaps time will separate us, but nobody can deny that here, behind the windows of Manchester, there is an insane love of football, of celebration and of music."

"Nunquam autem recte faciet, qui cito credit, utique homo negotians."

"Nam illi dies per somnum, nox officiis et oblectamentis vitae transigebatur; utque alios industria, ita hunc ignavia ad famam protulerat, habebaturque non ganeo et profligator, ut plerique sua haurientium, sed erudito luxu. ac dicta factaque eius quanto solutiora et quandam sui neglegentiam praeferentia, tanto gratius in speciem simplicitatis accipiebantur. proconsul tamen Bithyniae et mox consul vigentem se ac parem negotiis ostendit. dein revolutus ad vitia seu vitiorum imitatione inter paucos familiarium Neroni adsumptus est, elegantiae arbiter, dum nihil amoenum et molle adfluentia putat, nisi quod ei Petronius adprobavisset. unde invidia Tigellini quasi adversus aemulum et scientia voluptatum potiorem."

"Et ideo ego adulescentulos existimo in scholis stultissimos fieri, quia nihil ex his, quae in usu habemus."

"We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."

"Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas et taedet Veneris statim peractae. Non ergo ut pecudes libidinosae caeci protinus irruamus illuc (nam languescit amor peritque flamma); sed sic sic sine fine feriati et tecum iaceamus osculantes. Hic nullus labor est ruborque nullus: hoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit; hoc non deficit incipitque semper."

"Horatii curiosa felicitas."

"Raram fecit mixturam cum sapientia forma."

"Abiit ad plures."

"Qualis dominus talis est servus."

"Qui non valet lotium suum."

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω."

"Primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis. Levibus enim atque inanibus sonis ludibria quaedam excitando, effecistis ut corpus orationis enervaretur et caderet."

"Grandis et, ut ita dicam, pudica oratio non est maculosa nec turgida, sed naturali pulchritudine exsurgit."

"Nondum umbraticus doctor ingenia deleverat."

"Nuper ventosa istaec et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia commigravit animosque iuvenum ad magna surgentes veluti pestilenti quodam sidere adflavit, semelque corrupta regula eloquentia stetit et obmutuit."

"Nihil nimirum in his exercitationibus doctores peccant qui necesse habent cum insanientibus furere. Nam nisi dixerint quae adulescentuli probent, ut ait Cicero, ‘soli in scolis relinquentur’. Sicut ficti adulatores cum cenas divitum captant, nihil prius meditantur quam id quod putant gratissimum auditoribus fore—nec enim aliter impetrabunt quod petunt, nisi quasdam insidias auribus fecerint—sic eloquentiae magister, nisi tanquam piscator eam imposuerit hamis escam, quam scierit appetituros esse pisciculos, sine spe praedae morabitur in scopulo."