Singers From France

"Orthodox Buddhism strictly forbids religious rites, and the learned lamas acknowledge that they cannot bestow spiritual enlightenment, which can only be acquired by personal intellectual effort. Yet the majority believe in the efficacy of certain ritualistic methods of the healing of the sick, securing material prosperity, the conquest of evil beings and the guidance of the spirits of the dead in the other world."

"Probably he will vanish like a mirage, with his caparisoned little steed and his party of followers, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. He is a part of the enchantment in which I have lived these last fifteen days. This new episode is of the stuff that dreams are made of. In a few minutes, I shall wake up in a real bed, in some country not haunted by geni nor by "incarnated Lamas" wrapped in shimmering silk. A country where men wear ugly dark coats and the horses do not carry silver inlaid saddles on golden-yellow cloths."

"The attainment of transcendent insight is the real object of the training advocated in the traditional Oral Teachings, which do not consist, as so many imagine, in teaching certain things to the pupil, in revealing to him certain secrets, but rather in showing him the means to learn them and discover them for himself."

"The great majority of readers and hearers are the same all over the world. I have no doubt that the people of your country are like those I have met in China and India, and these latter were just like Tibetans. If you speak to them of profound Truths they yawn, and, if they dare, they leave you, but if you tell them absurd fables they are all eyes and ears."

"I think that women who have to deal with a big amount of people have to compartmentalize themselves. You have to have an attitude of strength in a way because you are supposed to direct and organize the life of people in that way, aloof. It doesn't mean much, it's just an attitude."

"I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them."

"Catherine Deneuve seems to have been made for cinema, and cinema for her. She IS French cinema. She seems to be getting more adventurous every year."

"She's not an icon in life. She knows things, and she's very clever. I think she's very shy. She tries to protect herself a lot."

"It was a film about character but also about actresses too, and she is the most important French actress for 50 years. When she accepted, it was very easy to build a cast around her."

"I think it's very tiring to be Catherine Deneuve each day"

"There's a very big challenge in the United States when it comes to ageing, especially for actors and actresses. I'm not saying it's easy in Europe, but in Europe we accept more readily to make movies with women in leading roles who are 40, 45, 50 years old. That is still very rarely seen in the US."

"[On wearing clothes made by the Yves Saint Laurent brand] You are more aware of what you wear. You feel totally different. When you live in public, it gives you an attitude that helps you be confident with people you don’t know."

"It's the social networks that prevent people from dreaming any more about stars. Their private life is displayed constantly on social networks; and some even post private pictures of themselves. I find it a pity. Being a star entails glamour and secrecy; it's hard to keep any degree of mystery nowadays."

"There is no such thing as a Hollywood career for a French actress today. You can come here and do films like Juliette Binoche, but you can't come here and have a career. It's because you don’t sign with studios anymore. I remember when I did Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I signed a contract with Fox. At the time, actresses would be proposed different scripts because they had to use you. Sure it had some inconvenience, but actors made films they might not ever make if they weren't under contract. Now, only individual producers choose and actors are left on their own."

"I can be very critical on myself and on other people; when I work, I can be very demanding. But to direct... I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved. And they have to make decisions all the time, they have to answer all the time. I think it's incredible. No, no, I wouldn't be able to do that. I imagine that you have to forget about what the project represents sometimes because otherwise you become a monster. It's incredible the amount of responsibility and power you have. I wouldn't want that."

"When you're not working and you're just living, you forget and all of a sudden something happens to remind you that you're an actor. I'm not always the nicest person to meet, because I forget very easily that I'm an actress when I'm not working. I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants. Then if something happens to remind me that I'm an actress then I become a little different and things become a little heavy. I like the advantages; I know it's not right but I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not."

"I try not to think that I am acting, but that I am the person. And instead of giving the audience your fantasies completely, I think it is more interesting to give them a place where they can imagine things instead of knowing everything; but maybe that is very French."

"J'ai traversé la vie sans la regarder. Je sais ce qu'est ma vie. Mon mari, c'est le public. Les chansons, ce sont mes enfants."

"Quand on dit "je t'aime", on veut dire "aime-moi"."

"Je n'étais pas une femme, mais une industrie de la chanson."

"Je crois que mon rêve a toujours été de devenir quelqu'un. De réussir dans la vie, dans le spectacle, je ne savais pas exactement quoi, mais c'était ou chanter ou jouer la comédie, ou faire du cinéma ou du théâtre... c'était le spectacle."

"La vie m'est insupportable, pardonnez-moi."

"Todo es mentira en este mundo Todo es mentira la verdad Todo es mentira yo me digo Todo es mentira ¿Por qué será?"

"Mentira la que manda Mentira comanda"

"Me llaman el desaparecido Que cuando llega ya se ha ido Volando vengo, volando voy Deprisa, deprisa a rumbo perdido Cuando me buscan nunca estoy Cuando me encuentran yo no soy El que está enfrente porque ya Me fui corriendo más allá Me dicen el desaparecido Fantasma que nunca está Me dicen el desagradecido Pero esa no es la verdad Yo llevo en el cuerpo un dolor Que no me deja respirar Llevo en el cuerpo una condena Que siempre me echa a caminar"

"Solo voy con mi pena Sola va mi condena Correr es mi destino Para burlar la ley Perdido en el corazón De la grande Babylon Me dicen el clandestino Por no llevar papel Pa' una ciudad del norte Yo me fui a trabajar Mi vida la dejé Entre Ceuta y Gibraltar Soy una raya en el mar Fantasma en la ciudad Mi vida va prohibida Dice la autoridad"

"All these animals are put in cages, never see the sun or grass, and they leave this hell only to go to the slaughter-house. For me intensive breeding is a sign of human degeneration. If one can find that acceptable, then we humans have lost all moral value. ... [How long have you been a vegetarian?] Since 1962, when I went on French television to denounce conditions of animal slaughter. That is when I became aware of the horror of factory farming, live transports and the killings of farm animals. I have always been sensitive to animal distress but from then on I refused to be involved in such inhuman industrial deaths."

"I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous, and very unhappy."

"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."

"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point."

"La mort est dans l'adieu d'un ami veritable."

"Standing outside the house where she was born, in June 1930, I think some things in Paris never change...things like the smell of fresh-baked baguettes at daybreak, the Napoleonic arcades [-] the morning coffee that you drink standing up for double impact and the sound of a chanson that's not just popular, its intensely personal, to everyone who hears it, it's a song that evokes a place, an encounter, a moment in your life. It might be sung by Edith Piaf, or Jacques Brel, or Juliette Greco - but the one for me who delves deepest into the collective unconscious, is almost unknown outside France, and her song is the story of millions of private lives, of the spirit of Paris, of the narrative of our times, of my lifetime, she's known as Barbara, though that's not her real name, she called herself, the Black Eagle, and she always wore black."

"Mais il mourut à la nuit même Sans un adieu, sans un je t'aime Mon père, mon père le ciel de Nantes Rend mon coeur chagrin."

"Et tant pis pour ceux qui s'etonnent Et que les autres me pardonnent Mais les enfants ce sont les memes A Paris ou a Gottingen."

"Un beau jour, ou peut-etre une nuit, Près d'un lac, je m'étais endormie, Quand soudain, semblant crever le ciel, Et venant de nulle part, Surgit un aigle noir."

"La mer Au ciel d`été confond Ses blancs moutons Avec les anges si purs La mer Bergère d`azur Infinie"

"La mer Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs A des reflets d`argent La mer Des reflets changeants Sous la pluie"

"La pendule fait tic-tac-tic-tic Les oiseaux du lac pic-pac-pic-pic Glou-glou-glou font tous les dindons Et la jolie cloche ding-dang-dong"

"Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette."

"Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave."

"Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o’clock … At five I have my abyss.”"

"Whether you are dealing with an animal or a child, to convince is to weaken."

"It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship."

"For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance."

"It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time."

"As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow."

"It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change."

"What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!"

"There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion."

"You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly."