In France we have a saying, 'Joie de vivre,' which actually doesn't exist in the English language. It means looking at your life as something that is to be taken with great pleasure and enjoy it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I started my hotel company, Joie de Vivre, at the age of 26, I saw this venture as my ticket to freedom.
But I have a tremendous will to live and a tremendous 'joie de vivre,' alternating with irritability.
'Playboy' made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings - not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself.
As an adolescent I was convinced that France would have to go through gigantic trials, that the interest of life consisted in one day rendering her some signal service and that I would have the occasion to do so.
I wish that people could understand that people need to laugh. They need to sing. They need to create their own joie de vivre.
When you succeed, at a certain point, you want to challenge yourself. Otherwise, you become boring. You become a has-been. It's not very interesting. I don't want to be this guy who has only succeeded in France. I could say, 'O.K., that's it; merci.' But I'm not interested in that.
Paris presents one incessant round of amusement & dissipation but very little, I believe - even for its inhabitants of that society - which interests the heart. Every day, you may see something new, magnificent & beautiful; every night, you may see a spectacle which astonishes & enchants the imagination.
If I'm in the country, my big idea is to do nothing. It means talking, it means cooking with the leftovers in the fridge - l'art d'accommoder les restes - it means gardening.
There is a certain dignity to being French.
It's really a drag to sit around when you're old, and think, 'Ah, gee, I never went to France.' Go to France. Life is very short; you've got to pack it all in there.
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