Time and again in the last two centuries, France has refused to come to grips with its diminished status as a country whose greatest general was a foreigner, whose greatest warrior was a teenage girl, and whose last great military victory came on the plains of Wagram in 1809.
- John J. Miller and Mark Molesky, “Our Oldest Enemy”
The French are revolting. This is not a subjective judgment but a statement of fact.
Pakistanis may dislike and mistrust the Americans at the moment, but that’s as nought compared with what they think about the Indians. They really, really properly hate Indians. Indeed, hating Indians is almost a defining patriotic characteristic of being Pakistani.
- AA Gill, “The London Times”
The Japanese take snapshots of everything, not just everything famous but everything. Back in Tokyo there must be a billion colour slides of street corners, phone booths, fire hydrants and overhead electrical wires. What are the Japanese doing with all these pictures? Its probably a question we should have asked before Pearl Harbour.
“France, home to the world’s greatest painters, chefs and anti-Semites. The French, cowardly yet opinionated, arrogant yet foul-smelling, anti-Israel, anti-American, and of course, as always, Jew-hating. Paris, the city of whores, dog feces on every corner, and effete men yelling anti-Semitic remarks at childern. The real creme de la creme of world culture. With all that’s going on in the world, isn’t it time we got back to hating … the French?”
- Saturday Night Live
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“So you’re French and Canadian, yes? So you’re obnoxious and dull? You’re in North America, learn the language!”
- Triumph the Insult Dog is let loose in Quebec by Conan O’Brien on “Late Night”
“Don’t mind her: she’s French-Canadian. Some days she’s Canadian and can be quite pleasant. Today she’s obviously French.”
- from “Vertical Limit”
The conscientious Canadian critic is one who subscribes to the New York Times so that he knows first hand what his opinion should be.
- Eric Nicol, 1968
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
“Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.”
- Irving Layton about Pierre Trudeau
“He has a French name, he thinks like an Englishman, and he looks like an Indian. We all feel very guilty about the Indians here in Canada.”
- Marshall McLuhan, explaining Pierre Trudeau’s longevity in Canadian politics
For some reason a glaze passes over people’s faces when you say “Canada”. Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.
- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S.
God has made Canada one of those nations which cannot be conquered and cannot be destroyed, except by itself.
- Norman Angell, “Canada’s Best Service for British Ideals” (1913)
Canadian consumers race across the border to buy the kind of cheap goods that a country with low wages and a third-rate social security system can produce. So empty are their lives, apparently, that a three-hour lineup of cars at the border coming back is viewed as an acceptable trade-off.
“If I had a dollar for every time I had 60 cents I would be Canada.”
- caption from a “Toothpaste for Dinner” cartoon