Quote

You don't want to pitch a tent and live inside the Louvre. You want to check it out, appreciate it, and move somewhere else.

I'd been going to the Louvre since 1951. I thought I knew Paris and the French, but I didn't really. You know how easy it is to make friends when you are traveling. People are curious about you, you are curious about them. But you never really make friends that way. After the Louvre, I discovered that I have friends now because I have enemies.

Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre.

The Louvre for me is a wonderful experience. Because it continues; it didn't get cut off. It was actually a continuous involvement all the way, and a lot of people have come and gone, come and gone; but I'm still here.

I've been fifty thousand times to the Louvre. I have copied everything in drawing, trying to understand.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

I'd skip school regularly to see movies - even in the morning, in the small Parisian theaters that opened early.

I was a typical French student of the 1990s - I imagined that, after a short excursion, I would work the rest of my life at home.

I was to Japanese visitors to Washington what the Mona Lisa is to Americans visiting Paris.

When I was younger and in primary school, I'd do maybe a film a year, and I had to adapt to being away from everyone for a couple of months.