Cities resemble people.
no.
Maybe people resemble cities.
How people travel around a city can vary from person to person.
There is a way to travel through the scenery while taking pictures with a guidebook.
Another is to travel the landscape of the lives of people living in the city.
Imagining other lives through people who live in other places.
Perhaps, in the end, we can find solace in the simple truth that humans are not all that different.
Without the pleasure of imagination, isn't travel just exhaustion and disappointment?

This book is an essay sketching the author's 17 years of Parisian life.
The Parisians in the book are just ordinary free people.
But these are the people who cannot build a house in life without passion.

Because of the time difference, I slept without knowing whether it was day or night, and the first place I went out to was Saint-Michel.
The warm light leaking from the old shops, the orange streetlights contrasting with the blue winter sky, the streets sparkling in their light, the old bookstores and dark gray roofs—the setting of Patrick Modiano's novel, "The Street of Dark Shops," was unfolding before my eyes. ---pp. 29-30

If we could dissect human choice and examine it through a microscope, wouldn't we see the actions and reactions acquired through past experiences gathered into tiny particles? ------- p.38

If the price of repairing a 50-year-old piece of furniture is the same as buying a similar piece of furniture, the French will pay that price to repair it.
Because that furniture contains time.---p.46

If you take away the small, insignificant pleasures, what joys are left in life? Isn't happiness the accumulation of these small pleasures? ---p.
65

If someone asks you, 'What is it like to live in France?', you can answer like this.
Planning a vacation that comes every two months is a drain on your time, brain, and finances.
Isn't the French people's standard of success not the size of their apartment, but rather the ability to go on vacation far and long? ---p.
74

It seems that the earnest desires of adults and children always stem from the desire to have something that cannot be grasped.---p.
75

As Rousseau said, the way to become rich is to either earn more money or suppress your desires.
Unfortunately, the satisfaction of desires gained through the possession of things is not sustainable and is always replaced by greater desires. ---p.111

Tango is a kind of love.
The process of meeting a partner and getting to know each other while dancing the tango is, well… how should I put it… sensual.
So, it's not fun when you meet a partner who is too good at tango.
My veteran partner can predict all my moves in advance.---p.
115

If I were to create a catalog of happiness, what would I include? Aren't our worries and anxieties born from our obsession with wanting more? If we were freed from this obsession, wouldn't we be able to experience the primal joy of life? ---p.
127

In a sense, everyday life is an interaction between people who consume similar necessities.
There is a clear boundary, like a stick that keeps items from getting mixed up on the counter.
If traveling is about breaking out of the mold of habit, isn't everyday travel about finding this kind of unfamiliarity up close? ---p.
138

There is friendship and love between the two marks.
They are open to the outside.
They are not great, and they do not strive to be great.
I am not rich and I am not trying to become rich.
But they have free time.
I am an ordinary Parisian who takes my child to an art museum on weekends, is moved by the exhibitions, and loves art. ---p.
154

The mother and daughter walking along this street chatting after school exudes a feminine softness in pastel tones, like Marie Laurencin's watercolors.
When we glimpse the life of a mother and daughter living alone in a small, cozy apartment, we get a dreamy and poetic feeling of a world without men and a soft femininity.
It's like the feeling of a simple workout that you can't feel in a normal home. ---p.
167

In the near future, people may come to think of marriage as an institution born from old customs.
In France, where the divorce rate is high, the concept of the nuclear family, transformed like Sophie's, changes the social system and consumer culture.
Divorce is not a wound or an incurable disease of the mind, but a new choice in life.---p.
175

Just before evening, when the blue light seeps into the living room of the apartment, that moment is truly beautiful.
That blue is a color that cannot be named exactly.
For me, happiness is moments like that.
The joy I feel when I awaken a part of me that has been sleeping.
It's like catching a fish with a fishing rod.
When I catch something like that and pull it out, I feel alive.
Isn't that precisely what makes us different from animals? ---p.
179

For the French, old televisions are like pets.
Their idea is that as long as life is still alive, they will not throw anything out on the street. ---p.205

As I crossed the Seine River, the Eiffel Tower was twinkling on my left.
It was probably past seven o'clock.
Some have described the Eiffel Tower, which sparkles with neon lights every hour, as if it were an old lady dressed up in a cutting-edge Jean Paul Gaultier design. ---p.222

The camera broke down quickly because of the desert sand.
Even though I wrapped the books I took tightly in plastic, sand eventually seeped in and damaged them.
What's really amazing is that even though there was no water, the natives were always clean.
It seemed like a miracle that I could survive by washing and drinking with just a bottle of water.
---p.
227

Perhaps the optimistic attitude that allows us to escape the shackles of life's obligations and weariness comes from a talent for connecting with the trivialities of everyday life? It's not about walking along a set path, fixating on it, but rather walking with free will, engaging with the elements of life, with a constant eye to the moment.
---p.
235

Paris is a city of visual richness.
A city where you can discover something new every day.
If Paris were a woman, I would definitely love her.


Being Parisian, in a way, doesn't mean becoming insensitive to Parisian rudeness? In fact, they don't do it out of personal feelings.
I don't know for sure, but they just happen to be that way.---p.
239


Most people's life style is determined by their value priorities.
The French way of life can be summarized in one word: 'Instead of earning a high income, I will work moderately and not give up my private life.'
I think we can say, 'We don't live to work, we work to live.'---p.
260

For French women, 'marriage' no longer seems to be in their future.
Maybe we've reached a point where males clutching computer joysticks and wrestling with monitors are increasingly considered a luxury and unnecessary thing in the home. ---p.
261

For nomads who long for freedom, marriage may mean settling down like a maison.---p.
269

“Paris is a place where you can do anything.
If anyone in Paris says they are bored, it is either because they want to be bored or because they are joking.”---p.
270

The administrative district that begins in the middle of the Paris map is Real, and the 300-meter street that stretches from right behind Real to Lambuttau Street is Montorgueil Street, where David lives.
This is a place that will appeal to those who prefer shabby alleys and places with a sense of place where people live, rather than famous landmarks.
Traditional shops lining both sides of the pedestrian-only street bring a Provençal atmosphere and liveliness to the heart of the city. ---p.
280

What makes Paris different from New York is that everyone is an audience, and everyone is a subject of attention.
Even grandmothers in their eighties are no exception.
It is a place where people's gazes constantly intersect and empathize, and that gaze also breathes life into people.
---p.
281

If someone asks me if my life has been a success, I would answer like this.
My children have their own opinions, are free, and have the courage to make their own choices.
I would say that just having that alone would be half a success in life.---p.
301

I absolutely cannot agree.
Wine recommendations from professional oenologists are like a guidebook you read before leaving for a travel destination.
You are free to go on a trip and suffer or to go knowing in advance.---p.
319

Have you ever been attracted to a woman for no reason? Taste and beauty, they're the same thing.
The global wine market is currently holding a beauty contest.
The competition is hosted by a large wine company like Robert Mondavi in ​​the United States, and the judges are authors like American oenologist Robert Parker and French winemaker Michel Rolland.
And winemakers are diligently undergoing cosmetic surgery to make their wines fit the criteria of beauty pageants.

---p.
320