French Quotes

If Woody Allen called me, I'd be there straight away. Who wouldn't? Truly.

I'm an adaptable nomad. I love Paris, I've been living in Los Angeles and New York since 1990. I love London, too. My roots are inside of me.

I went to film school to make films just because you're in control of the story.

I wasn't born an artist. I was really good in science as a kid. I probably shouldn't have been an artist because I'm much more interested in science. But I was raised by artists. I can't really escape it.

I was six years old when I saw my first Godard movie, eight when I first experienced Bergman. I wanted to be a director when I was fourteen.

I make these little films. I'm just a working person. I just study people a little bit more. It's more sociological, and it's funny anyway - not that serious. It's not like false humility. I just take it for what it is.

I love the acting process. What I don't like is what's around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox.

I love acting and I still want to do it, but I've such an instinct for directing, it's something that comes naturally to me. It's why I'm here on this planet.

I had to trick people into giving me money for my first film. Making a romantic comedy is easier and more expected from a woman than it is to make a drama about a Japanese warrior.

I don't want to go to the Bahamas on holiday. I hate islands. I want to go to Brittany, where it's cold and raining, and there's nothing fancy about it.

Too many women throw themselves into romance because they're afraid of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. I won't do that.

Yes, the European model remains superior to that of America and Japan.

This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.

These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.

Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

The problem with a purely collective system is not only that it requires economic growth, and the right sort of demographic trends, but that it prevents people thinking about their futures in a responsible way.

The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.

The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.

The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.

My problem is how to find the best way of being useful.

My presidential victory, if it had happened, would have been artificial in relation to the Socialist party. It may be that on my deathbed, I will come to regret my decision, but for the moment, I live at peace with it.

If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.

I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.

I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France.

Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don't go out of their way to do each other favours.