Famous quotes containing the words french and/or patois:
“The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar- room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)