A biography for Pamela Druckermanhasn’t been written yet.
“When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have chara”
“Eating among the French certainly affected me. After a few years here, I gave up most of my selective food habits.”
“Before Donald Trump took office, optimism about his presidency was the lowest of any president-elect since at least the 1970s.”
“I had applied to become French - or, rather, Franco-American, as I'm now a dual citizen - partly because I could: I'd lived and paid taxes here for long enough.”
“The French view is really one of balance, I think... What French women would tell me over and over is, it's very important that no part of your life - not being a mom, not being a worker, not being a wife - overwhelms the other part.”
“Here's some news you might find surprising: By and large, the French like Jews.”
“When you're further along in your career, you probably have more money and more means; you have to stop yourself from giving your child too much. Whereas, if you're in twenties, you might just get by.”
“Practically every time I speak up at a school conference, a political event, or my apartment building association's annual meeting, I'm met with a display of someone else's superior intelligence.”
“When you're the foreigner and your kids are the natives, they realize you're clueless much sooner than they ordinarily would. I'm pretty sure mine skipped the Mommy-is-infallible stage entirely.”
“I guess we're all supposed to get used to living in a more dangerous world.”
“French schools follow a national curriculum that includes arduous surveys of French philosophy and literature. Frenchmen then spend the rest of their lives quoting Proust to one another, with hardly anyone else catching the references.”
“Certain woman will be jealous of how skinny you are, no matter what's causing it.”
“Parisiennes rarely walk around wearing the giant diamonds that are de rigueur in certain New York neighborhoods.”
“When people used to ask me what I missed about America, I would say, 'The optimism.' I grew up in the land of hope, then moved to one whose catchphrases are 'It's not possible' and 'Hell is other people.' I walked around Paris feeling conspicuously chipper.”
“I've never gotten a good idea while checking Twitter or shopping.”
“And as a mother of three with a full-time job, podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly 'meeting' new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods and tell when they were flirting with guests.”
“I don't like rules, because rules, you have to follow.”
“When I was 41, I had a very bad back pain, and it turned out to be Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.”
“Not many foreigners move to Paris for their dream job. Many do it on a romantic whim.”
“Get rid of the idea of kids' food. Kids can eat whatever adults can eat. You know, there is one dinner, and everyone has the same thing.”