"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. All you do is leave behind a lot of noisy baggage." - Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense
"I am calling upon you, my fellow Americans, to "extend the olive jar" to our French brothers and sisters and yappy little dogs. I want you to deliberately approach French people wherever you can find them -- on the street, on the Internet, in the "Small World" ride at Disney World, in public restrooms -- and make friendly overtures to them in their own language (French). To help you do this, here is a list of friendly French phrases:
"Bonjour, personne francaise!" (``Hello, French person!")
"Je suis un Americain, et, dangue il, je vais vous donner une grande vieille etreinte!" (``I am an American and, dang it, I am going to give you a big old hug!")
"Parole! Vous ne sentez pas demi aussi de mauvais que j'ai prevu!" (``Say! You do not smell half as bad as I expected!")
"Qui s'inquiete qui court darned le monde?" (``Who cares who runs the darned world?")
"Voulez-vous la gomme? Elle ketchup-est assaisonnee!" (``Do you want gum? It's ketchup-flavored!")
"Voulez que je vous porte au mail dans mon SUV?" (``Want me to take you to the mall in my SUV?")
"Vous pouvez vous rendre au garde de securite!" (``You can surrender to the security guard!")
"Ha ha, je suis badiner juste autour hors de l'amiti!" (``Ha ha, I am just kidding around out of friendship!")
"Hey, revenez ici!" (``Hey, come back here!")
"Il n'y a aucune cause pour l'alarme! Mon pistolet a une surete!" (``There is no cause for alarm! My gun has a safety!")
Yes, fellow Americans, with a little effort, we can heal this rift between us and our old friends. Because, in the end, we have a lot more in common than we do separating us! Or, as the French would say, "Je suis un grand gros menteur" ("I am a big fat liar")." - Dave Barry"America is currently very unpopular in the world. For example, our allies hate us. Especially the French. They have always hated us, of course, for stealing the concept of french fries, but now they REALLY hate us, because our culture has become so dominant that they're having trouble completing so much as a single sentence without using American words. They're always blurting out statements like: 'Le software de la hardware est un humdinger!' And then they get so mad that they could spit." - Dave Barry
"Of course this basic concept [of turning using Snails as a power source] is not new. The French have been converting snails into energy for centuries. But the French are, for the most part, human, whereas SlugBot is a purely mechanical device." - Dave Barry
"We view the French as a bunch of snotty, hygiene-impaired, pseudo-intellectual, snail-slurping weenies whose sole military accomplishment in the past 100 years was inventing the tasseled combat boot." - Dave Barry
"I don't think I could ever forgive the French for being French" - Tyler Berry
"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It's not known, it's never been tried." - Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo
"If it weren't for their UN delegate working his ass off to disrupt American foreign policy, France would have exactly zero productivity." - Buff
"I think of that army of cowards with their appetites for dictatorship that will perhaps be seen again in power, in this forgetful country, by those will survive this time of damned algebra." - Rene Char
"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." - Jacques ChIRAQ
"What a vile nation the French are. Nature must vindicate herself by letting them die out." - Winston Churchill
"Despite an enormous groundswell of support for an attack on France, we probably won't." - Ann Coulter
"If life were a video game, level 1 would be France." - Crono
"Medieval Paris has open ditches, intended for storm drains only. People were not supposed to dump household waste into them, but people did. As Paris seldom receives downpours heavy enough to flush out such ditches, the result was noisome in the extreme." - L. Sprague de Camp, The Ancient Engineers, showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
"By the standards of the US, there are no credible politicians in France who would be considered "conservative". They're all socialists (irrespective of whether they're formally labeled "Socialist"). It's just a matter of degree. And by the standards of Europe, the American Democratic Party (generally considered more "liberal" by us) would be extremely conservative. It's just that the Republicans are even more conservative." - Steven Den Beste
"I was at a celebration of India's Independence Day, and a Frenchman came walking up to me and started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we were not going to agree. And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' And he looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' And I said, 'You're welcome,' turned around and walked off." - Tom DeLay
"Gays dont vomit, Brian, they're very clean people. They have been that way since they came to this country from France." - Family Guy
"So who should solve the North Korea problems? Anyone but us. Hey France - you have a lot of opinions. You'll love North Korea. It's completely devoid of Jews" - Tina Fey, Weekend Update, SNL
"“When you look back you can see that Bill Clinton wasn't the first black president or the first feminist president so much as he was the first French president.” - Jonah Goldberg
"Americans are still finding out -- the hard way -- that loyalty, gratitude, comradeship and respect for treaty obligations are qualities never exhibited by French governments." - Paul Johnson
"It is simplistic, or simple-minded, as the French foreign minister, whose name is Petain or Maginot or something, sniffed last week. C'est vrai. It is indeed "simplisme" to pick fights with evil regimes just because those regimes want to kill you or enslave you or at least force you to knuckle under and collaborate in their evil, when one might choose the far safer and far more profitable path of shrugging one's shoulders in a fetchingly Gallic fashion and sending one's Jews off to the camps, as one's new masters in government request. On the other hand, as the foreign minister might have noticed, the French may today enjoy springtime in Paris without the annoying sounds of jackboots all over the place, and the reason for that was the simple-minded determination of the British, the Russians and the Americans to fight the Nazis and to die by the millions, in order to make the world safe for, among other creatures, future French foreign ministers. "Simplisme" works. Against evil, it is the only thing that does." - Michael Kelly
"President Bush and National Security Guard Tom Ridge launched the new Department of Homeland Security, just 24 hours after taking us down to threat level French — I'm sorry, I mean threat level yellow." - Craig Kilborn
"Did you see the new bomb the government came up with? It weights 21,000 pounds. The Air Force tested this bomb in Florida and the bomb blast was so strong at Disneyworld 25 French tourists surrendered." - Jay Leno
"French troops arrived in Afghanistan last week, and not a minute too soon. The French are acting as advisers to the Taliban, to teach them how to surrender properly." - Jay Leno
"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France." - Jay Leno
"There was another war-related casualty today. The French were injured when they tried to jump on our bandwagon." - Jay Leno
"France wants more evidence [of Iraqi violations]. The last time France wanted more evidence, it rolled right through France with a German flag." - David Letterman
"I’ve never understood why nations with great cheese don’t have better armies." - James Lileks
"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it." - John McCain, U.S. Senator (R-AZ)
"Negotiating with Saddam Hussein is about as practical as practicing aroma therapy on a French man. Okay? It’s not going to happen.” - Dennis Miller
"The French are always reluctant to surrender to the wishes of their friends and always more than willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies." - Dennis Miller
"Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada." - Ted Nugent
"A lot of Americans right now are angry at the French. In Washington, the cafeteria where the members of Congress eat announced that they have changed the name of 'french fries' to 'freedom fries.' Nothing like this has happened since the 1950s when 'russian dressing' changed to 'commie sauce.'" - Conan O'Brien
"What makes French Vanilla different from regular Vanilla? Cowardice!" - Conan O'Brien
"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people." - Conan O'Brien
"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know." - P.J O'Rourke, 1989
"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." - General George S. Patton
"President Chirac? The mouth of de Gaulle, the soul of Petain, and the morals of a pimp." - Ralph Peters
"The French smoke all the time because it's their last competitive skill." - Ralph Peters
"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." - Regis Philbin
"Sadly, the unsophisticated French have not grasped the connection between welfare-statism and terror. Not until they begin to engage these root causes will terrorism be beaten." - Glenn Harlan Reynolds
"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it." - Marge Simpson
"I'm really glad the French are willing to help us only after the Iraqi's gas our troops. What will they do then? Send cheese?" - sofaking_par
"There are worse things in life than death. Being French is one of them" - spampy
"In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal." - Gertrude Stein
"For years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain — but enough about the French. So deep had the rot set in that the UN security council itself was paralysed." - Margaret Thatcher
"France, in bed with Syria... Is there a country out there so bad that even France won't bend over for it?" - Bryan Trosko
"France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France." - Mark Twain