“My fear had nothing to do with the actual French people. What scared me was the idea of French people I’d gotten from movies and situation comedies. When someone makes a spectacular ass of himself, it’s always in a French restaurant, never a Japanese or Italian one. The French are people who slap one another with gloves and wear scarves to cover their engorged hickies. My understanding was that, no matter how hard we tried, the French would never like us, and that’s confusing to an American raised to believe that the citizens of Europe should be grateful for all the wonderful things we’re done.”
–David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
July 15th, 2003 at 10:35 pm
Sedaris’ observations on Paris are great!