Sex is wonderful, but it's like champagne. If you're forced to have four glasses at every meal you start to fantasize about a glass of water. - Stephen Clarke

[After some time] I found that I understood a lot more about Parisians' attitude to work. Workdays became a mild irritant inserted between weekends. Friday afternoons were little more than a short period after lunch during which you checked the internet for traffic jams on the routes out of town.

This was Marianne, the revolutionary heroine, the French equivalent of Uncle Sam. This being France, instead of a bearded old uncle who looks as if he should be advertising fried chicken, they have a seminaked woman.

A French politician without a mistress is like a sheriff without a gun—people think he has no firepower.