101 Paris Quotes to Inspire your Wanderlust

We absolutely LOVE Paris – the City of Light, City of Love, and a city that symbolizes everything travel-related. There is something so romantic, and nostalgic about Parisian streets that are hard to shake off. We hope these 101 Paris quotes will inspire you to book that flight ticket, dream and teleport you to France!

Did you know Paris was originally called, ‘Parissi’? It was only after 887 that it came to be known as ‘Paris’.

There is something magical about the city of Paris – from cute cafes, dreamy lanes, Seine River banks, gardens to the free-spirited vibes in the air! If you have not been there yet, these inspiring quotes about Paris will motivate you to plan that trip!

101 Paris Quotes to Inspire your Wanderlust

These famous Paris quotes are perfect for social media or Instagram captions. You can also pin these images for inspiration later

Paris Quotes for Instagram Captions

“Paris is always a good idea.” – Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina

“I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It’s an incredibly romantic and beautiful place.” – Alan Furst

“Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. It brings tears to your eyes.” – Lee Radziwill

“There is but one Paris, and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“I like The Eiffel Tower because it looks like steel and lace.” – Natalie Lloyd

“To be a Parisian is not about being born in Paris, it is about being reborn there.” – Sacha Guitry

“It’s true, you never forget your first love, and for me, that will always be Paris.” – Caitriona Balfe

“An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Paris at dawn is one of those rare cities where you get the impression that something worthwhile could actually happen to you.” – Pierre Assouline

“He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.” – Victor Hugo

“Paris is not a city; it’s a world.” – King Francis I

“Paris holds the key to your heart.” – Anastasia

“We’ll always have Paris.” – Howard Koch

“When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.” – Klemens von Metternich

“Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past.” – Michael Simkins

“In Paris, our lives are one masked ball.” — Gaston Leroux

“Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past.” — Michael Simkin

“Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I’ve never been down before is like going to a movie or something. Just wandering the city is entertainment.” – Wes Anderson

“The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.” – T.S. Eliot

“Paris at night is a street show of a hundred moments you might have lived.” – Courtney Maum

“Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.” – Jeffrey Eugenides

Dreaming of Paris Quotes

This is a compilation of Paris quotes about dreams of living, visiting, or experiencing the city. We have also included some of our favorite quotes about Paris that paints a vivid picture of ‘being there’ or ‘feeling of being there’ (making dreams come to reality)

Paris lanes illustrated — Quotes about Paris France

“Everyone dreams of living in Paris.” – Natalie Portman

“The shopping, the food, the views! Paris is a city that entrances us all—and I’m no exception.” – Michael Kors

“Paris exists to remind you that all your dreams are real.” – Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina

“A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I know so much is going to happen here, but I just don’t know how. It feels like Paris is full of so many adventures just waiting to be had.” – Rachel Kapelke-Dale

“Just add three letters to Paris, and you have paradise.” – Jules Renard

“I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“Breathe Paris in. It nourishes the soul.” – Victor Hugo

“You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden.” – Allen Ginsberg

“Paris… is loath to surrender itself to people who are in a hurry; it belongs to the dreams, to those capable of amusing themselves in its streets without regard to time when urged business requires their presence elsewhere.” – Julien Green

“In Paris, they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.” – Mark Twain

“Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her–and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”- Anne Rice

“I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.” – Kristin Hannah

“I think Paris smells, and not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She’s a city for all the senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and yes, for mysteries.”- M.J. Rose

“When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.” – Henry Miller

“Paris is the city in which one loves to live. Sometimes I think this is because it is the only city in the world where you can step out of a railway station—the Gare D’Orsay—and see, simultaneously, the chief enchantments: the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Elysees—nearly everything except the Luxembourg Gardens and the Palais Royal. But what other city offers as much as you leave a train?” – Margaret Anderson

Coffee in Paris Quotes

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards, and ancient winding medieval streets–as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her–and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.” – Anne Rice.

Quotes about Paris in Literature, Movies, Art and Media

“I should go to Paris and jump off of the Eiffel Tower. If I took the Concorde, I could be in my next life three hours earlier.” – Woody Allen, Everyone Says I Love You

“Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.” – Paula McLain, The Paris Wife

“That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.” – Marion Cotillard, Midnight in Paris

“What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!”- Charles Dickens

“To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!” – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris, and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies, you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.” – Roman Payne, Crepuscule

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.” – Midnight in Paris

“Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.” – Honoré de Balzac

“Let’s go to Paris. Take me there and never look back.” – Lana Del Rey

“Paris is the City of Light, of love, of beauty, of romance and of hope over fear, gratitude over cynicism and light over darkness. The light must, has before and will always prevail…. I stand with the City of Light now and forever.” – Doni Belau, Girls’ Guide to Paris

“…the whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music…it is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in Everything.” – James Thurber

“You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can’t. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights. I mean come on, there’s nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.” – Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris

Paris Captions and Sayings by famous people

“We’ll always have Paris.” – Humphry Bogart, Casablanca

“If you’re going to be sad, you might as well be sad in Paris.” – Gossip Girl

“It seemed that in Paris you could discuss classic literature or architecture or great music with everyone from the garbage collector to the mayor.” – Julia Child, My Life in France

All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower.

Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her–and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.” – Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

Emily in Paris Quotes

Say oui to new possibilities – Emily in Paris, a popular Netflix TV series – we binged watched as we waited for the world to open in 2020. Here are some popular Paris quotes from the show

“Paris seems like a big city, but it’s really just a small town.” – Camille, Emily in Paris

“I Like Paris, But I’m Not Really Sure Paris Likes Me.”

“It’s Paris. Everyone’s Serious About Dinner.”

“Paris is for cheese lovers.”

“You’re In Paris Now. I’m Sure We Can Find You Something Better Than Peanut Butter.”

Paris Quotes Funny

“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” – Oscar Wilde

“Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.” – Henry Miller

“In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.” – Jean Cocteau

“Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.” – John Berger

“London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.” – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“If “Sex and the City” taught us anything, it’s that Paris is the only city in the world that New Yorkers actually fantasize about.” – Elizabeth Bard

“It’s Paris. You don’t come here for the weather.” – Adrian Leeds

“I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am.” – Gustave Eiffel

“Cities have gender: London is a man, Paris is a woman, and New York City a well-adjusted transsexual.” – Angela Carter

More Paris Sayings and Captions

“The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café.” – Oscar Hammerstein II

“I guess it goes to show that you just never know where life will take you. You search for answers. You wonder what it all means. You stumble, and you soar. And, if you’re lucky, you make it to Paris for a while.” – Amy Thomas

“It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist’s studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.” – Julian Barnes

“Paris was all so… Parisian. I was captivated by the wonderful wrongness of it all – the unfamiliar fonts, the brand names in the supermarket, the dimensions of the bricks, and paving stones. Children, really quite small children, speaking fluent French!” – David Nicholls

“I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles.” – Cole Porter

“Secrets travel fast in Paris.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.” – Honoré de Balzac

“There should be a name for the syndrome that occurs when you’re in Paris and you already miss it.” — Rosecrans Baldwin

“I refer of course to the soaring wonder of the age known as the Eiffel Tower. Never in history has a structure been more technologically advanced, materially obsolescent, and gloriously pointless all at the same time.” – Bill Bryson

“There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o’clock, and start writing at once.” — James Joyce

“Unknown in Paris, I was lost in the great city, but the feeling of living there alone, taking care of myself without any aid, did not at all depress me. If sometimes I felt lonesome, my usual state of mind was one of calm and great moral satisfaction.” – Marie Curie

“A final reminder. Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh.” – Kate Simon

“Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“In Paris, I really do like to try and do nothing… but that’s impossible.” — Christian Louboutin

“People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris, and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain, or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies, you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.” — Roman Payne

Paris One Liners

“Pardon my French”

“Okay, but first Paris.”

“You had me at Bonjour”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a Notre Dame”

“I couldn’t come to Paris without my French coat.”

“Paris, I Louvre you”

“Oui just love Paris!”

“Holy crêpe, Paris is amazing”

“In-Seine-ly beautiful”

“Just looking for a Seine”

Quotes about Paris in French

“Paris, je t’aime.” (Paris I love you!)

“Paris est à proprement dire toute la France”.- Heinrich Heine (Paris is actually France.)

“Le vrai parisien n’aime pas Paris, mais il ne peut vivre ailleurs”. – Alphonse Karr (A true Parisian does not love Paris, but can not live elsewhere.)

“A Paris, vois-tu, il vaudrait mieux n’avoir pas de lit que pas d’habit.” – Maupassant (In Paris, it is better to have no bed than no clothes.)

We hope you enjoyed this compilation of Paris captions and quotes. If you are planning a trip to Paris, don’t forget to read the following guides

101 Paris Quotes to Inspire your Wanderlust