Flâneur Quotes

“To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.”
― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

“Walking is also an ambulation of mind.”
― Gretel Ehrlich

“Paris is narcotic for a man alone, a never-ending labyrinth where the anxiety of freedom is relieved.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris

“The flâneur is he who consecrates his own life to the instant, to ephemeral things.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris

“She is the wanderer, bum, émigré, refugee, deportee, rambler, strolling player. Sometimes she would like to be a settler, but curiosity, grief, and disaffection forbid it.”
― Deborah Levy, Swallowing Geography

“Free and alone in the maze of the city, the flâneur craves a revelation that might change his life and destiny.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris

“The flâneur wanders restless through the city like an untamed beast. He succumbs to the crowd like a wreck to the waves, letting himself be overcome by the liberating breath of anarchy. There is something voluptuous, almost orgiastic, in this dissolution.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris

“Mais parfois il y a quelque chose de fébrile, de morbide, dans l’allure du flâneur. Il erre dans la ville, semble être à la recherche d’une chimère. Sa destination est confuse ou impossible à atteindre. Son pas se fait nerveux, exaspéré : on dirait un homme en fuite. Le flâneur fuit la banalité de la vie ordinaire. Il fuit les souvenirs et les spectres de son intériorité.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: L'art de vagabonder dans Paris

“The day in which you decline an invitation to see a film or a concert in order to walk along roads that you already know, the day in which you say no to a journey to some island paradise so as to contemplate the greyness of your own city in the rain… well, that’s the day you will know you are a true flâneur.”
― Federico Castigliano

“Parfois, quand la symphonie de la ville frappe à ma porte au petit matin, je descends dans la rue et me mets en chemin, enveloppé dans mon manteau noir, le long des avenues bondées de la rive droite. Ce sont ces sombres jours d’hiver où le spleen de Paris tourmente les âmes et incite les esprits libres à une longue dérive sans but ni destination.”
― Federico Castigliano

“Paris est la drogue du solitaire, un labyrinthe inépuisable où l’angoisse du possible s’apaise.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: L'art de vagabonder dans Paris

“The streets of Paris had a way of making me stop in my tracks, my heart suspended. They seemed saturated with presence, even if there was no one there but me. These were places where something could happen, or had happened, or both; a feeling I could never have had at home in New York, where life is inflected with the future tense.”
― Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London

“Just as the flâneur wanders the Parisian Grands Boulevards, allowing disparate, shocklike experiences to be inscribed on his body even as they resonate in his memory, so the 'assistant' type, in a state of intoxication akin to a mystical trance, wanders through the Kafkan universe. In their blithe and groundless transparency, such figures alone seem capable of bringing to consciousness the alienating character of historical conditions.”
― Howard Eiland, Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life

“Parece poco lícito hablar del "flâneur" sin tener en cuenta el efecto que tiene sobre él la ciudad que habita, que dista mucho de ser el mismo en todos los casos.”
― Fiona Songel, El arte de leer las calles. Walter Benjamin y la figura del flâneur

“Il flâneur è colui che consacra la propria vita all’attimo, alle cose effimere.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris

“Ma a volte c’è un qualcosa di febbrile, di morboso, nell’andatura del flâneur. Vaga per la città, sembra alla ricerca di una chimera. La sua meta è confusa o irraggiungibile. La sua andatura si fa nervosa, esasperata: pare un uomo in fuga. Il flâneur fugge la banalità della vita comune. Fugge i ricordi e gli spettri della sua interiorità. Lo sfavillare dell’apparenza fenomenica riempie la cavità vuota del suo io. Il flâneur è un uomo gettato nella strada da un’inquietudine, sospinto da un’ansia di ricerca che lo perseguita e lo distingue da coloro che se ne stanno placidamente seduti al tavolino di un caffè. Come una bestia indomita, il flâneur vaga per la città irrequieto. Si abbandona alla folla come una carcassa all’onda, si lascia invadere dal soffio liberatorio dell’anarchia. E c’è qualcosa di voluttuoso, quasi di orgiastico, in questa dissoluzione.”
― Federico Castigliano, Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris