William Alexander Quotes
18 quotes • Painter • Age 81
"I’m lecturing my class last week. In the English language, I tell them, a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn’t a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative. And I hear a voice from the back of the room: ‘Yeah, right.’"
"Choose one thing you care about and resolve to do it well. Whether you succeed or not, you will be the better for the effort."
"The nice thing about baking alone in the kitchen before dawn is that you can talk to yourself like a crazy person and no one suspects you're a crazy person."
"French, for me, is not just an accomplishment. It’s a need. —ALICE KAPLAN, French Lessons, 1994"
"Thankfully, improbably, we are aboard, sighing, then giggling with relief, until our fun is spoiled by le conducteur. “Billets? ” he requests. In the mad dash to the train, we’ve had to neglect one slight detail: tickets."
"On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. (We see well only with the heart.) —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, Le petit prince, 1943"
"Hawthorne ends the story this way: 'He failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present."
"Gardening is, by its very nature, an expression of the triumph of optimism over experience. No matter how bad this year was, there's always next year. Experience doesn't count."
"Bread is life."
"How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex? —Julia Child"
"a Frenchman might say after sipping a smooth red wine: C’est le petit Jésus en culotte de velours! It’s the baby Jesus in velvet shorts! What!? Relax, it’s just the French way of saying “It’s the tops!” (a Roaring Twenties flapper might’ve said, “It’s the cat’s pajamas!”) or it goes down easy, like God in velvet shorts—or underpants, depending on who’s translating. You get the idea, although getting the idea doesn’t make it any less curious. My secret fantasy is to see an American presidential candidate slip up and use that expression on the stump: “Winning Connecticut would be the baby Jesus in velvet shorts!” Not only would his career be over, but I swear, I’d probably make a map of France, right then and there. French and the Middle-Aged Mind Middle age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, Why not?"
"One event is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, and three a pattern."