Joyce Adams

“Goncourt observed in a rare compliment, although he felt compelled to add that the dinner included “some grouse whose scented flesh Daudet compared to an old courtesan’s flesh marinaded in a bidet.”14”
― Mary McAuliffe, Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends

“Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you’ve got those autumn blues. And some…well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful void. Like a short, torrid love affair.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“Studying Liberty in the Louvre that day, I wondered if French women sensed a pressure to be both sexy and smart. Perhaps they felt just as Liberty might have: frustrated that she’d broken free of her corsets, only to find she couldn’t escape from society’s expectations that women should be, above all, seductive. Or did they simply accept that women were a package of contradictions, complicatedly wrapped up in layers of lace and feminine frills?”
― Katrina Lawrence, Paris Dreaming

“If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims