So I said to this train driver "I want to go to Paris". He said "Eurostar?". I said "I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin".
I certainly think I have aspects of Paris in me.
I'm a nomad. I have a place in New York in the Flatiron District, and I have a place in Paris in Ile Saint-Louis, and I spend a lot of time in Congo.
New York is more exciting, I guess, than even Paris or London. New York's the center of something; I don't know what, really - the center of a lot of things. With all its problems and chaos and craziness, it's still a great place to live. I can't see myself living anywhere else.
I remember when Lindbergh arrived in Paris, I was one of the first persons to know about his landing, because as the French people know that I was born in St. Louis, thinking I would be very proud to announce it to the public, they gave me the news first. I was then starring in the 'Folies Bergere. '
But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there.
One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States. . . A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn't stand it anymore. . . I felt liberated in Paris.
The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal's heart).
When I wrote 'Barefoot in Paris,' I wanted to make simple recipes that you could make at home that tasted like French classics.
In 1994 while on weekend manoeuvres in France, I commandeered a Chieftain tank without permission of my immediate superiors. I then attempted to invade Paris. However, en route I stopped off at Disneyland, or Eurodisney as it was then called, and was subsequently apprehended on Space Mountain.
Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.
Nothing changes and very little happens in Paris. This is a great place to work without distraction - and then I run away to New York, where I have a life!
If I were to choose one single thing that that would restore Paris to the senses, it would be that strangely sweet, unhealthy smell of the Métro, so very unlike the dank cold or the stuffy heat of subways in New York.
That's why 'The Bourne Identity' has that sort of shaky style, because for the most part, Matt Damon and I were sneaking around Paris and shooting where we didn't have permits.
Coming [to Paris] has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am.
My first modeling job in Paris, the photographer said, 'Tue es belle,' which means, 'you are pretty,' and I thought he said, 'Tu es poubelle,' which means, 'you are the trash can. ' I burst into tears. He was not happy about that.
I used to live in a little city by the sea, and the feeling of isolation - it was not like living in Paris or London. It was a bit apart from the main city, and [it gave me] this feeling of isolation and also being close to nature, with nature as a surrounding and also a frontier, from the society of the world.
The problem was Le Corbusier was a genius and an enormous artist, but he tried to resolve problems to which there is no solution. So the idea to demolish the centre of Paris in order to adapt it to the car - he drew it! - is something not even the most bloody dictators conceived.
I can live in Paris for four months or London or, you know, Barcelona. These are places that are like New York. But I don't think I could live in many places. When I had to make a film in the United States I picked San Francisco because to me it's one of the great cities of America.
Tax dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.