Quotes and Sayings about English
"Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone."
- F. Murray Abraham
(Related: Actor, English, Language, Man, Now, Talk, Trying)
"Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country."
- John Acton
(Related: Mother, Being, Constitution, Country, Democracy, English, Revolution, Opposition, Result, states, Traditions, United)
"In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names."
- Mortimer Adler
(Related: Love, English, Names)
"I am just like 99% of my friends in France, who say on their resume they can speak fluent English. In reality, they can't even count up to three."
- Greg Akcelrod
(Related: English, France, Friends, Reality)
"I lived in England to learn English. When I went to England for the first time, it was like being on the Moon. I had no friends, I couldn't speak the language. I was very isolated."
- Jean Alesi
(Related: Time, Being, EnglEnglish, First, Friends, Language, Moon)
"Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested."
- Hervey Allen
(Related: Civilization, Aristocracy)
"The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major."
- Stephen Ambrose
(Related: Successful, Being, English, Writer)
"That is why I come forward tonight without any political label, without any bias, but just simply as an Englishman to say to you: a crime is being committed against civilization."
- John Amery
(Related: Civilization, Being, Crime)
"I appeal to all Britishers to answer this call to arms for the defence of all the principles that we Englishmen have been the first to proclaim in the world."
- John Amery
(Related: First, Principles, World)
"Listeners will wonder what an Englishman is doing on the German radio tonight. You can imagine that before taking this step I hoped that someone better qualified than me would come forward."
- John Amery
(Related: Will, Wonder)
"A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire."
- Laurie Anderson
(Related: Life, Idea, Electricity, English, Word, Words)
"I know my own heart to be entirely English."
- Princess Anne
(Related: Heart, English)
"Your great country is wonderful at stealing pieces of history and using it for its own purposes, so there didn't seem to be anything particularly unusual about it but the English were incredibly exercised about it."
- Michael Apted
(Related: History, Country, English)
"Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there."
- Joan of Arc
(Related: Love, God, English, France, Hatred, Nothing, Will)
"The themes Poe used were universal and timeless. As long as the English language exists at all, we will be able to appreciate what he did. It will not age! It will not become dated!"
- John Astin
(Related: English, Language, Will)
"We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming."
- Rowan Atkinson
(Related: Nature, Quality, English, Programming, Television, Tradition, Years)
"Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English."
- David Attenborough
(Related: Time, English)
"I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds."
- John James Audubon
(Related: Birds, English, Habits, Living, Man)
"For 180 years, we voted in English. That is the true American tradition, and this amendment is true to our heritage, not what has existed unnaturally for the last 20 years."
- Spencer Bachus
(Related: American, English, Tradition, Years)
"So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education."
- Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
(Related: Education, English, Forget, Religious, School)
"No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist."
- Walter Bagehot
(Related: Death, Soul, English, Gentleman)
"It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand."
- Fredrik Bajer
(Related: Doubt, English, Vice, Will)
"It was always said that the big distinction between the French and the English is that the English are intelligent and the French are intellectual."
- Kenneth Baker
(Related: English)
"I'm English. Our dentistry is not world famous."
- Christian Bale
(Related: English, Famous, World)
"'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it."
- Christian Bale
(Related: Time, English, Film, Months)
"I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event in which races were run, and I won these by a considerable margin."
- Roger Bannister
(Related: Children, English, Games, School)
"I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable."
- Javier Bardem
(Related: Energy, English, Feeling, Trying)
"Everybody in Spain is sick of me. But in America, there's curiosity about the new kid on the block who doesn't speak English very well. The attention makes me feel vulnerable, which is something I hadn't felt in a while. But I like it."
- Javier Bardem
(Related: America, Attention, Curiosity, English, Spain)
"The city and province were given up to anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American residents."
- Henry Walter Bates
(Related: People, Victory, American, Anarchy, English)
"I'd been trying for a while to get parts that weren't just the English bad guy, so it was quite refreshing to be playing someone who was a compassionate, decent guy."
- Sean Bean
(Related: English, Trying)
"The average Englishman has no idea of the dynamism in the music scene here."
- Kabir Bedi
(Related: Music, Idea)
"The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes."
- Thomas Beecham
(Related: Love, Music, English, May)
"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing."
- Robert Benchley
(Related: English, Language, Nothing)
"I am not 100% English, I am actually part Italian and even part Hungarian. Therefore I feel very much part of Europe both in my upbringing and outlook."
- Bruce Bennett
(Related: English, Europe)
"Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language."
- William Bennett
(Related: Children, English, Language)
"I do love cricket - it's so very English."
- Sarah Bernhardt
(Related: Love, Cricket, English)
"Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: English, Example, Lady, Identity, Poison)
"People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me."
- Harrison Birtwistle
(Related: Music, People, English, Writing)
"The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy."
- Bjork
(Related: People, Comedy, Country, Criticism, English)
"That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution."
- William Blackstone
(Related: Constitution, English, Wrong)
"The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose."
- William Blake
(Related: Art, Science, Vice)
"Yes, they broke the law, but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it - they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need."
- Michael Bloomberg
(Related: History, English, Law)
"The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment."
- Edward Bond
(Related: English, Punishment)
"Ironically, for a few million people in the Far East, I did become an English teacher through my music."
- Pat Boone
(Related: Music, People, English)
"There were two sides to David Lean: on the one side, he was kind of a rather stiff, disciplined Englishman. And then he had this kind of romantic side to him. I think being true to both sides of your nature is important."
- John Boorman
(Related: Nature, Being, Romantic)
"English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did."
- Malcolm Bradbury
(Related: History, Men, American, English, Fathers, Trying)
"The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth."
- Malcolm Bradbury
(Related: Truth, Americans, English, Lies)
"I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world."
- Malcolm Bradbury
(Related: English, World)
"I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English."
- David Brainerd
(Related: Wife, English, Poor, Talk)
"Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks."
- Jimmy Breslin
(Related: English, Language, Past)
"There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives."
- David Brin
(Related: Science, Doubt, English, Fiction, Training)
"It's funny how a film about a murderous old English toff can help you."
- Jim Broadbent
(Related: Funny, English, Film, Help, Old)
"The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me... by newspapers and the Bible."
- Van Wyck Brooks
(Related: Bible, American, Books, English, Mind, Newspapers)
"Like, What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside?"
- Jackson Browne
(Related: English, Language)
"More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to."
- Bill Bryson
(Related: People, English, Rest, World)
"My favorite pudding is good old English apple pie."
- Jeremy Bulloch
(Related: English, Favorite, Old)
"English policy may not yet have made the definite decision to attack us; but it doubtless wishes, by all and every means, even the most extreme, to hinder every further expansion of German international influence and of German maritime power."
- Bernhard von Bulow
(Related: Power, Policy, Decision, English, Extreme, Influence, May, Wishes)
"We try to magnify the difference between Americans and the English. In real life they like the same music and dress the same. It's really much more similar than anyone thinks or how we show it."
- Amanda Bynes
(Related: Life, Music, Americans, Difference, Dress, English)
"My least favorite phrase in the English language is "I don't care.""
- James Caan
(Related: Care, English, Favorite, Language)
"English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite."
- Michael Caine
(Related: English, Speech)
""I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?"
- George Carlin
(Related: English, Language)
"People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career."
- Helena Bonham Carter
(Related: People, Career, English, First, Job)
"In the past when I was in Hollywood, I was like a dog. I felt humiliated. My English was not good. People would even ask me 'Jackie Who?'."
- Jackie Chan
(Related: People, English, Hollywood, Past)
"The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers."
- Raymond Chandler
(Related: English, May, World, Writers)
"An Englishman, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion."
- George Chapman
(Related: Being)
"Although an increasing proportion of the Hispanic population is foreign-born - about half of adults in this group - English proficiency is and should remain a requirement for citizenship."
- Linda Chavez
(Related: Citizenship, English, Population)
"I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'."
- Cher
(Related: English, Learning)
"Being "contented" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Being, Content, English, Living)
"If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Advice, Country, English, Fire, World)
"We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: English, Irish)
"Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it."
- Sandra Cisneros
(Related: English)
"The English like eccentrics. They just don't like them living next door."
- Julian Clary
(Related: English, Living)
"Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone."
- John Clayton
(Related: English, Language)
"The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip."
- John Cleese
(Related: English, World)
"We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Common sense, English, May, Sound)
"A friend of mine said, no matter what I do I always look like an English teacher. She actually said, you still look like a Campbell's Soup kid."
- Kate Clinton
(Related: Friend, English)
"I am not accustomed to pay fulsome compliments to the English, by telling them that they are superior to all the world; but this I can say, that they do not deserve the name of cowards."
- Richard Cobden
(Related: Compliments, Cowards, English, Name, World)
"I'm older than my sister so I started writing first. I started writing at school. I was always top of my class in composition, essays, English Lit and all of that."
- Joan Collins
(Related: Sister, Class, English, First, School, Writing)
"On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say."
- Phil Collins
(Related: Work, Day, English, Language)
"In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids."
- Bill Condon
(Related: English, Hollywood)
"I unfortunately don't speak French, but my wife is now fluent in English, which really reflects rather badly on me."
- Sean Connery
(Related: Wife, English, Now)
"I met my wife through playing golf. She is French and couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak French, so there was little chance of us getting involved in any boring conversations - that's why we got married really quickly."
- Sean Connery
(Related: Wife, Chance, English, Golf)
"I am not an Englishman, I was never an Englishman, and I don't ever want to be one. I am a Scotsman! I was a Scotsman and I will always be one."
- Sean Connery
(Related: Want, Will)
"To cultivate an English accent is already a departure away from what you are."
- Sean Connery
(Related: Departure, English)
"I think English people were a lot better at breakdancing than they were at making records."
- Norman Cook
(Related: People, English)
"I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue."
- Francis Ford Coppola
(Related: Science, Care, English, Fiction, Job, Saying)
"My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English."
- Eric Allin Cornell
(Related: Mother, Father, Engineering, English, School)
"I don't know what 'operational control' of the border means, but I do understand the English language. And as I understand that phrase, that's not true. We do not have operational control."
- John Cornyn
(Related: Control, English, Language)
"Most people have no idea how to politely answer a phone. The English do, and it's been their only major business advantage for the past two centuries."
- Doug Coupland
(Related: Business, People, Idea, English, Past)
"Shakespeare, who is probably the greatest writer and poet of the English language, lived in a time that was politically very conservative and it's reflected in his writings."
- Alex Cox
(Related: Time, Conservative, English, Language, Shakespeare, Writer)
"Everybody gets a little dose of Shakespeare. He's the greatest playwright in the English language, but his politics are fairly square."
- Alex Cox
(Related: Politics, English, Language, Shakespeare)
"I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish."
- Graham Coxon
(Related: American, English, Irish, London, Now, Pretty)
"There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s."
- Graham Coxon
(Related: American, English, Focus)
"I think one of the best words in the English language is compassion. I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference."
- Michael Crawford
(Related: Love, Care, Compassion, Difference, English, Language, Words)
"We are Englishmen; that is one good fact."
- Oliver Cromwell
(Related: Fact)
"I must confess, my Spanish is not so good - except I read a little, so I started with the English but then determined that it would have to be in Spanish."
- George Crumb
(Related: English)
"Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French."
- Cyril Cusack
(Related: English, Identity, Irish, Theatre, World)
"Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English."
- Roald Dahl
(Related: Father, Diaries, English)
"Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?"
- Clarence Darrow
(Related: English)
"I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere."
- Ray Davies
(Related: Songs)
"No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English."
- Robertson Davies
(Related: People, English, World)
"I am now in Gibraltar. It is a large place and there does not seem to be room in this letter, in which to express my feelings about Moors in bare legs and six thousand Red-coats and to hear Englishmen speak again."
- Richard H. Davis
(Related: Feelings, Now)
"There was always a lot of American music in England until, obviously when the Beatles came around, then there was a shift towards English music, but before then American music was the main thing."
- John Deacon
(Related: Music, American, EnglEnglish)
"Let the teachers teach English and I will teach baseball. There is a lot of people in the United States who say isn't, and they ain't eating."
- Dizzy Dean
(Related: People, Baseball, Eating, English, states, Teachers, United, Will)
"An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch."
- Daniel Defoe
(Related: Will)
"I wouldn't say no to being in a film with Jude Law. I love English actors."
- Catherine Deneuve
(Related: Love, Actors, Being, English, Film, Law)
"One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked."
- Anita Diament
(Related: English, Favorite, Poets)
"I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading."
- Kate DiCamillo
(Related: English, Reading, Training)
"The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself."
- Charles Dickens
(Related: Business, English, Law)
"There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable."
- Annie Dillard
(Related: Age, English, Speech)
"The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern."
- Benjamin Disraeli
(Related: Concern)
"It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature."
- John Drinkwater
(Related: Achievement, English, Paradise, Literature, May, Poems)
"You know, nobody eats in England. Three or four pints of English beer a night fills you. I can't say I'm very impressed with the food in America. it's all sort of bland. Like turkey sandwiches."
- Anne Dudley
(Related: Food, America, Beer, EnglEnglish, Night, Turkey)
"Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited."
- Steve Earle
(Related: English, Song, Writing)
"The relation of repetitions for learning and for repeating English stanzas needs no amplification. These were learned by heart on the first day with less than half of the repetitions necessary for the shortest of the syllable series."
- Hermann Ebbinghaus
(Related: Heart, Day, English, First, Learning, Needs)
"There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?"
- Barbara Ehrenreich
(Related: Fear, Purpose, English, Fun)
"English music is white - it evades everything."
- Edward Elgar
(Related: Music, English)
"I have crushed the cup of youth like a rose between my fingers but its nectar never warmed my weary heart."
- Jon English
(Related: Heart, Youth)
"Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away and every ounce of energy you try to give away as the sweat pours out your body like the music that you play."
- Jon English
(Related: Music, Body, Energy, Play)
"You can lay down and die, or you can get up and fight, but that's it - there's no turning back."
- Jon English
(Related: Fight)
"Turkey, unlike chicken, has very elegant characteristics. It has more of a cache than chicken. Turkey is a delicacy, so it should be presented in such a way."
- Todd English
(Related: Turkey)
"Some of the things I think I learned from that were very educational as far as just paying bills - the basics in dealing with a restaurant like that. It was just life - the education involved in running the organization, even on a small level."
- Todd English
(Related: Education, Life, Running)
"Like anything, you don't force kids to cook. It just becomes part of life - have them be around it, keep them informed - talk about it. I try to relay my passion for it in these ways. The second you try to force anything on your own kid, they rebel."
- Todd English
(Related: Life, Force, Kids, Passion, Talk)
"We have a training period; we have certain guidelines and structure. You can't hire talented people and stifle them. That's not the way it works anymore."
- Todd English
(Related: People, Training)
"I think a lot of people have a misconception of what the kitchen is about, but you know the grueling part of it is also the pleasure of it. That's why I think you have to have a certain mentality to understand what that is and be able to handle it."
- Todd English
(Related: People, Kitchen, Pleasure)
"I played from the time I was seven years old. My father was my first baseman coach. I had opportunities that I never really pursued - with some Miami teams and a few larger colleges, and then I ended up bailing and began cooking."
- Todd English
(Related: Time, Father, Coach, Cooking, First, Old, Years)
"I liked the energy of cooking, the action, the camaraderie. I often compare the kitchen to sports and compare the chef to a coach. There are a lot of similarities to it."
- Todd English
(Related: Sports, Action, Coach, Cooking, Energy, Kitchen)
"I call it an old-fashioned seafood house for the new millennium. We are trying to update what we know as old fish houses and places like that, which are great, but I want to give it a new, fresh look with updated versions of the classics we all love."
- Todd English
(Related: Love, Fish, Houses, Old, Trying, Want)
"Having been to Europe and working and traveling there, the restaurants my wife and I remember were always off the beaten trail restaurants. So I tried to seek a little 'off the beaten trail,' but cool area."
- Todd English
(Related: Wife, Europe, Restaurants, Traveling)
"I'm definitely nervous and excited. I feel like I've been playing off-Broadway, not to say that Boston doesn't have a great theatre district or great theatre, but it's not going to Broadway; it's just a different city."
- Todd English
(Related: Boston, Theatre)
"I try to get them working. My older son is 10 and he's pretty interested. We had a dinner party the other night and he helped a lot. He helped peel asparagus; he hung out. It was great."
- Todd English
(Related: Son, Night, Party, Pretty)
"I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American."
- Robert Englund
(Related: American, English, First, Writer)
"Many great horror stories are period pieces and English actors have a facility for historic characters."
- Robert Englund
(Related: Actors, English, Horror)
"O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, I never indulge in poetics - Unless I am down with rheumatics."
- Quintus Ennius
(Related: Friend, English, Tongue)
"I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English bar; without which, impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence."
- Thomas Erskine
(Related: Constitution, Dignity, English, Existence, Independence, Integrity, Justice, Will)
"Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!"
- Juan Manuel Fangio
(Related: English, Hell, School)
"Some of the substance of English words, I just don't understand at all because the culture's so strange to me."
- Chow Yun Fat
(Related: Culture, English, Words)
"If we had a starting XI that no one could argue about it wouldn't say a lot for English football. We'd probably be on a downward spiral. It's good that people have different ideas about who should play."
- Rio Ferdinand
(Related: People, Ideas, English, Football, Play)
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's good enough for Texas."
- Ma Ferguson
(Related: Christ, English)
"Cooper wrote a novel which is absolutely indistinguishable from Austen, completely from a female point of view, completely English, no sense that he was an American."
- Leslie Fiedler
(Related: American, English, Sense)
"In this case it appealed to me partly because it felt close to me in some ways. This is about a confused, bewildered middle class Englishman adrift in smalltown America and that has definitely been me."
- Colin Firth
(Related: America, Class, Middle class)
"The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think."
- Colin Firth
(Related: People, Country, English, Shakespeare, Word)
"Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too."
- Robert Fitzgerald
(Related: English, Language, Living, Satisfaction, Words)
"The heart of the matter seems to me to be the direct interaction between one's making a poem in English and a poem in the language that one understands and values. I don't see how you can do it otherwise."
- Robert Fitzgerald
(Related: Heart, Values, English, Language)
"In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary."
- Robert Fitzgerald
(Related: Eloquence, English, Fact, Vocabulary, Will)
"Myspace alone has just over 80 million users and ranks as the sixth most popular English language website and the eighth most popular site in the world."
- Mike Fitzpatrick
(Related: English, Language, Popular, World)
"All of our affairs, since the union of crowns, have been managed by the advice of English ministers, and the principal offices of the kingdom filled with such men, as the court of England knew would be subservient to their designs."
- Andrew Fletcher
(Related: Men, Advice, Court, EnglEnglish)
"The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship. A true friend would die for you, so when you start trying to count them on one hand, you don't need any fingers."
- Larry Flynt
(Related: Love, Friendship, English, Trying, Vocabulary, Words)
"I love to laugh, it's my main thing. I love to abuse the English language."
- Dan Fogelberg
(Related: Love, Abuse, English, Language)
"I believed that English-speaking people had a divine mission to civilize the world by making it western, democratic and Christian."
- Luke Ford
(Related: People, Christian, English, Mission, World)
"The English countryside, its growth and its destruction, is a genuine and tragic theme."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Growth, Destruction, English)
"My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad."
- Bill Forsyth
(Related: Sisters)
"I don't think the English like me. I sold a colossal best seller in America, and they never really forgave me."
- John Fowles
(Related: America, English)
"I just remembered songs my grandmother taught me, and songs that I learned for the recordings. But, then I learned to speak Italian. When I was there, I hired a professor who stayed with me 24 hours a day. She wouldn't let me speak a word of English."
- Connie Francis
(Related: Day, English, Songs, Word)
"I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense."
- Robert Frost
(Related: Music, English, May, Sense, Sound, Writers)
"I've concentrated for a long time on English films because I've got two kids but my oldest son is 11 and I think I'm going to be away for about four months of year now."
- Sadie Frost
(Related: Time, Son, English, Kids, Months, Now)
"It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common."
- Stephen Fry
(Related: Americans, English)
"I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations."
- Stephen Fry
(Related: Books, English, Respect)
"I'd probably want to teach at university, because children would drive me insane. I suspect it would be English literature, Shakespeare and so forth. I've always been deeply, deeply in love with that kind of thing."
- Stephen Fry
(Related: Love, Children, English, Literature, Shakespeare, University, Want)
"Since coming to Harwell I have met English people of all kinds, and I have come to see in many of them a deep rooted firmness which enables them to lead a decent way of life."
- Klaus Fuchs
(Related: Life, People, Deep, English, Firmness)
"Before I joined the project most of the English people with whom I had made personal contacts were left wing and affected to some degree or other by the same kind of philosophy."
- Klaus Fuchs
(Related: People, English, Philosophy, Project)
"But the nature of my main work in chemistry can be better represented by more than 280 English publications, of which roughly 200 concern the theory of chemical reactions and related subjects."
- Kenichi Fukui
(Related: Nature, Work, Concern, English, Theory)
"And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it."
- Cornelia Funke
(Related: English, Example, Names)
"Every German child learns to speak English in school."
- Cornelia Funke
(Related: English, School)
"The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French."
- Charlotte Gainsbourg
(Related: Mother, Father, Daughter, Being, English)
"We had at our disposal the first operational jet, which superseded by at least 150 knots the fastest American and English fighters. This was a unique situation."
- Adolf Galland
(Related: American, English, First)
"I'm an advocate of the great Dr. Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel."
- George Galloway
(Related: Patriotism, English, Letters, Man)
"The English light is so very subtle, so very soft and misty, that the architecture responded with great delicacy of detail."
- Stephen Gardiner
(Related: Architecture, Detail, English, Light)
"I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano."
- Gordon Getty
(Related: Poetry, English, Paris, Poems)
"My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language."
- Edward Gibbon
(Related: English, Language, Obscurity)
"Your English style will no doubt put all the other gentlemen to bed. I speak figuratively, of course."
- John Gielgud
(Related: Bed, Doubt, English, Gentlemen, Style, Will)
"The English scene got more media attention with their emphasis on fashion, with the safety pins and all. There were some really good bands over there. The Sex Pistols were great."
- Greg Ginn
(Related: Sex, Attention, English, Fashion, Media, Safety)
"English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens."
- David Ginola
(Related: Time, English, First, Football, Managers, Will)
"I obtained a job at the Library of Congress. I loved books, so I felt at home. I was going to end up, I thought, majoring in English and teach at the college level."
- Tom Glazer
(Related: Home, Thought, Books, College, Congress, End, English, Job)
"French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety."
- Alma Gluck
(Related: English, Trying)
"When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!"
- Alma Gluck
(Related: Control, English, Old, Songs, Voice)
"This character's entirely invented, and the woman that I interviewed wouldn't recognize herself, or really anything about herself, in this book, which she hasn't read, because she doesn't read English."
- Arthur Golden
(Related: Character, English, Woman)
"The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals."
- Edmond De Goncourt
(Related: English, Nation)
"The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'."
- Maxim Gorky
(Related: English, Language, Words)
"I was an English major in college with minors in Fine Arts and Humanities."
- Sue Grafton
(Related: College, English)
"What we know is that Shakespeare wrote perhaps the most remarkable body of passionate love poetry in the English language to a young man."
- Stephen Greenblatt
(Related: Love, Poetry, Body, English, Language, Man, Remarkable, Shakespeare)
"First of all, there was a volcano of words, an eruption of words that Shakespeare had never used before that had never been used in the English language before. It's astonishing. It pours out of him."
- Stephen Greenblatt
(Related: English, First, Language, Shakespeare, Words)
"I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago - you'd have to put that into better English for me, thank you - they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes."
- Jonny Greenwood
(Related: Music, Time, English)
"Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone."
- Germaine Greer
(Related: Brother)
"English culture is basically homosexual in the sense that the men only really care about other men."
- Germaine Greer
(Related: Men, Care, Culture, English, Sense)
"Me fail english? Thats unpossible."
- Matt Groening
(Related: English)
"It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!"
- Thom Gunn
(Related: Time, Being, English, Fame, Gay)
"Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me."
- David Guterson
(Related: Money, Time, Thought, Habit, Being, Books, English, Thinking, Writers, Writing)
"Someone's just told me the English are still trying to take over the United States - is that true?"
- Steve Guttenberg
(Related: English, states, Trying, United)
"I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really."
- Maggie Gyllenhaal
(Related: Religion, English, Literature)
"Perhaps first and foremost is the challenge of taking what I find as a reader and making it into a poem that, primarily, has to be a plausible poem in English."
- Marilyn Hacker
(Related: Challenge, English, First)
"The situation right after the fight wasn't too good; I believe I'm still the only champion in the world who never received the belt inside the ring once you've won the title. I held that against the English fans for a long time but I felt that also motivated me."
- Marvin Hagler
(Related: Time, English, Fans, Fight, Right, World)
"Sitting here now today, I can forgive a lot of the English people because it only takes a hand full of bad people to do something stupid like that and it can make the whole country look bad."
- Marvin Hagler
(Related: People, Country, English, Now, Today)
"At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did."
- Otto Hahn
(Related: English, First, Poison)
"The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner."
- Margaret Halsey
(Related: English)
"I was well warned about English food, so it did not surprise me, but I do wonder sometimes, how they ever manage to prise it up long enough to get a plate under it."
- Margaret Halsey
(Related: Food, English, Wonder)
"Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American."
- Renny Harlin
(Related: Action, Actors, American, English, Film)
"It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also."
- Townsend Harris
(Related: English, Opium, Want)
"To Englishmen, life is a topic, not an activity."
- William Henry Harrison
(Related: Life)
"Everywhere among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with special privileges and legal exemptions."
- Albert Bushnell Hart
(Related: Legal, English, Justice, Race)
"From William of Orange to William Pitt the younger there was but one man without whom English history must have taken a different turn, and that was William Pitt the elder."
- Albert Bushnell Hart
(Related: History, English, Man)
"In 1763 the English were the most powerful nation in the world."
- Albert Bushnell Hart
(Related: English, Nation, World)
"We English have sex on the brain. Not the best place for it, actually."
- Laurence Harvey
(Related: Sex, English)
"I didn't know what kind of jobs, because how was I prepared? At best, I would be an AB in English."
- John C. Hawkes
(Related: English, Jobs)
"The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: English, Nation)
"It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Work, Bible, English, Exaggeration, Influence, Language, Literature, Race, Shakespeare, Will)
"One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is the want of an index."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Books, English, Want)
"Some persons have ventured to say that it is only since Englishmen ceased to believe in the Bible that they began to discover how beautiful it was."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Bible)
"At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: English, Famous, Language, Literary, Monument)
"For this reason, to study English literature without some general knowledge of the relation of the Bible to that literature would be to leave one's literary education very incomplete."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Education, Knowledge, Bible, English, Literary, Literature, Reason, Study)
"French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Women, Marriage, Adultery, English, Lovers, Public, Sexes, World)
"I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Love, Poetry, English, Fiction, Literature, Passion)
"The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing."
- Thomas Hearne
(Related: English, Race, Weeping)
"I had higher math SATs than in English - yet I became an English major in college."
- Christie Hefner
(Related: College, English)
"I speak English, so I am no longer cute. My tongue itches for French."
- Anna Held
(Related: Cute, English, Tongue)
"The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Boyfriend, Ambition, American, Film, Hollywood)
"The Englishman never enjoys himself except for a noble purpose."
- A. P. Herbert
(Related: Purpose)
"An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose."
- A. P. Herbert
(Related: Purpose)
"Would it be possible to stand still on one spot more majestically - while simulating a triumphant march forward - than it is done by the two English Houses of Parliament?"
- Alexander Herzen
(Related: English, Houses, March, Parliament)
"In English, the sounds and melodies I created were an inspiration to me, and words came to me as I explored the sounds, and from there I was able expand on the meaning."
- Utada Hikaru
(Related: Inspiration, English, Meaning, Words)
"The thing is, in English I'm able to write the lyrics as I'm making the song, once I'm done with the melody."
- Utada Hikaru
(Related: English, Song)
"For the version of this CD released in Japan, a translation of the English lyrics is included, but there are lots of places where meanings are lost in the process of translation."
- Utada Hikaru
(Related: English)
"And I'm walking along and we're laughing, kidding, joking, and see he understood the leader, the one we called the leader, had some knowledge of English, although limited."
- Betty Hill
(Related: Leader, Knowledge, English, Walking)
"The essays in The Great Taos Bank Robbery were my project to win a Master of Arts degree in English when I quit being a newspaper editor and went back to college."
- Tony Hillerman
(Related: Being, College, English, Project)
"If we do not get No Child Left Behind right for Limited English Proficient students, the law will be a failure for most schools in the 15th Congressional District, and for many across the nation."
- Ruben Hinojosa
(Related: Failure, English, Law, Nation, Right, Schools, Students, Will)
"I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly."
- Roald Hoffmann
(Related: English, Language)
"Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.'"
- Tom Hooper
(Related: Mother, English, Friends, London, Play, Reading, Reason, Speech, Theater)
"By the by, if the English race had done nothing else, yet if they left the world the notion of a gentleman, they would have done a great service to mankind."
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Related: English, Gentleman, Mankind, Nothing, Race, Service, World)
"American professional athletes are bilingual; they speak English and profanity."
- Gordie Howe
(Related: American, Athletes, English, Profanity)
"All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity."
- Gordie Howe
(Related: English, Profanity)
"Life isn't all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education."
- Thomas Hughes
(Related: Education, Life, Beer)
"If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless."
- John Hume
(Related: English, Language, Word)
"There is abundant proof that the opening of our ports always tends to raise the price of foreign corn to the price in the English market, and not to sink the price of British corn to the price in the continental market."
- Joseph Hume
(Related: English, Proof)
"The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence, and happily they were able to formulate the inalienable truths set forth in the Declaration."
- Samuel P. Huntington
(Related: English, Independence)
"Being English, I always laugh at anything to do with the lavatory or bottoms."
- Elizabeth Hurley
(Related: Being, English)
"The English press, are so nosy, and the English seem to love that eavesdropping."
- Michael Hutchence
(Related: Love, English, Press)
"I - and there are hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who felt on this subject as I do - have always liked my Celtic countrymen and disliked the English nation; it is a national trait of character, and I cannot help it."
- Douglas Hyde
(Related: Character, English, Help, Nation)
"Realistically, English is a universal language; it's the number one language for music and for communicating with the rest of the world."
- Enrique Iglesias
(Related: Music, English, Language, Rest, World)
"In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be adopted."
- William Ralph Inge
(Related: Solution, Will)
"My early influences were the Shadows, who were an English instrumental band. They basically got me into playing and later on I got into blues and jazz players. I liked Clapton when he was with John Mayall. I really liked that period."
- Tony Iommi
(Related: English, Jazz, Shadows)
"And of course we are familiar with the English common law rule of thumb that said a man could in fact use a stick no bigger than his thumb to discipline his wife and family."
- Patricia Ireland
(Related: Family, Wife, Discipline, English, Fact, Law, Man)
"To become an American citizen, we require people to read, write and speak in English. That is to help them to assimilate in our melting pot, truly to become Americans. We mock that when the cherished right to vote does not involve English any more."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: People, American, Americans, English, Help, Right, Vote)
"English should be our official language. Reading and speaking English are requirements to become a citizen."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: English, Language, Reading)
"Instead of this confusion, we need the unifying force of an official language, English, which is the language of success in America."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Success, America, Confusion, English, Force, Language)
"My father was the son of immigrants, and he grew up bilingual, but English is what my father taught me and what he spoke to me. America's strength is not our diversity; it is our ability to unite around common principles even when we come from different backgrounds."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Father, Son, Strength, Ability, America, Diversity, English, Principles)
"Printing ballots in multiple languages costs millions of dollars every year. It also discourages immigrants from integrating into American society and gaining the benefits that come from speaking English."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Society, American, Benefits, English, Printing)
"Yeah, Wacko Jacko, where did that come from? Some English tabloid. I have a heart and I have feelings. I feel that when you do that to me. It's not nice."
- Michael Jackson
(Related: Feelings, Heart, English)
"German and English firms operate internationally, while French firms do not. The only place where they all have work is in China. Anybody can sell himself in China!"
- Helmut Jahn
(Related: Work, English)
"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."
- Henry James
(Related: English, Language, Summer, Words)
"An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue."
- Henry James
(Related: Tongue)
"We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends."
- P. D. James
(Related: Enemies, English, Friends, Obligation)
"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life."
- P. D. James
(Related: Life, English, Memory)
"Harrison Ford - one of my favorite actors - has a wonderful sense of character and depth and uniqueness to him, yet he's able to just deliver the lines without putting any English on it."
- Thomas Jane
(Related: Character, Actors, English, Favorite, Sense, Uniqueness)
"To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all."
- Randall Jarrell
(Related: Americans, English, Manners)
"A number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond."
- Robert Jenkins
(Related: American, Americans, English)
"The recent riots in France demonstrate the problem European countries face where second and third generation immigrants still do not consider themselves French, German, or English."
- Bobby Jindal
(Related: Countries, English, France)
"Making the City Of Joy gave me the best political education of my life. It became a wrestling match between an Englishman who had gradually ceased to be a Marxist, and a culture that was becoming more Marxist by the day."
- Roland Joffe
(Related: Education, Life, Culture, Day, Joy, Wrestling)
"And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name."
- Elton John
(Related: Change, English, Name)
"In 1628 came the first English attack on Canada."
- Harry Johnston
(Related: Canada, English, First)
"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why."
- James Joyce
(Related: English, Public, Reading, Reason, Writing)
"The liberty of the Press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman."
- Junius
(Related: Rights, Liberty, Press, Religious)
"Croquet is tough. People play for months because the rules are so bizarre. Those crazy English."
- Jane Kaczmarek
(Related: People, Bizarre, English, Months, Play, Rules)
"We are Bayern Munich and English teams always have trouble as soon as they leave the island."
- Oliver Kahn
(Related: English, Trouble)
"English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese."
- Abdul Kalam
(Related: Science, English, Present, Will)
"I have English family in Northhampton and have been to England numerous times."
- Steve Kanaly
(Related: Family, EnglEnglish)
"For English assignments I was constantly coming up with these strange adventure stories... But I actually wanted to be an artist, or maybe work in the comic book industry."
- Paul Kane
(Related: Work, Adventure, Artist, English)
"If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman."
- John Keegan
(Related: American, English, Gentleman)
"The funniest line in English is "Get it?" When you say that, everyone chortles."
- Garrison Keillor
(Related: English)
"If there's anything I'd hate as a son-in-law, it's an actor; and if there's anything I think I'd hate worse than an actor as a son-in-law, it's an English actor."
- Joseph P. Kennedy
(Related: Son, Actor, English, Hate)
"I studied voice for three months to get rid of my English accent. I changed my hair to blonde. I knew I could be sexy if I had to."
- Deborah Kerr
(Related: English, Hair, Months, Voice)
"I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published."
- Sally Kirkland
(Related: Art, History, Poetry, Dance, English)
"My early education was in the public school system of Omaha, where, retrospectively, I realize that my high school training served me in good stead for the basic subjects of mathematics, English, foreign languages and history."
- Lawrence R. Klein
(Related: Education, History, English, Mathematics, Public, School, Training)
"The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being, the American wants to be considered a good guy."
- Louis Kronenberger
(Related: American, Being, Gentleman)
"My mom and my dad wanted my brother and I to have a better life, you know, better education, better jobs. It was probably harder, much, much harder, for my parents. When you're a kid, you can learn a language much more easily; I learned English in less than a year."
- Mila Kunis
(Related: Dad, Mom, Education, Life, Brother, English, Jobs, Language, Parents)
"A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime."
- Chiaki Kuriyama
(Related: English, Play)
"I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning."
- Chiaki Kuriyama
(Related: Enthusiasm, America, Difficulty, English, Learning, Necessity, Sense)
"This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America."
- William Labov
(Related: African, America, American, English, Grammar, Vocabulary)
"It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century."
- William Labov
(Related: African, American, Creation, English, Inheritance, Present, Slavery)
"I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities."
- William Labov
(Related: America, English, Language, Minority, Now, Research)
"However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects."
- William Labov
(Related: African, American, English, Research, Years)
"I translated Beatles songs for my English class."
- Christian Lacroix
(Related: Class, English, Songs)
"I never had to learn English, French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot."
- Karl Lagerfeld
(Related: English, School)
"A spirit, breathing the language of independence, is natural to Englishmen, few of whom are disposed to brook compulsion, or submit to the dictates of others, when not softened by reason, or tempered with kindness."
- Joseph Lancaster
(Related: Independence, Kindness, Language, Reason, Spirit)
"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."
- Doug Larson
(Related: English, Flowers, Language, Sense)
"You know, I do speak the Queens English. It's just the wrong Queens that's all. It's over the 59th Street Bridge. It's not over the Atlantic Ocean."
- Cyndi Lauper
(Related: English, Ocean, Wrong)
"For us, sons of France, political sentiment is a passion; while, for the Englishmen, politics are a question of business."
- Wilfrid Laurier
(Related: Business, Politics, France, Passion, Question, Sentiment, Sons)
"He is ready, if the occasion presents itself, to throw the whole English population in the St. Lawrence."
- Wilfrid Laurier
(Related: English, Population)
"The Divinity could be invoked as well in the English language as in the French."
- Wilfrid Laurier
(Related: Divinity, English, Language)
"We shall never be understood or respected by the English until we carry our individuality to extremes, and by asserting our independence, become of sufficient consequence in their eyes to merit a closer study than they have hitherto accorded us."
- Henry Lawson
(Related: English, Extremes, Eyes, Independence, Individuality, Merit, Study)
"Who says Australia offers not a home for every poor Englishman, or any other countryman that finds his way to our shores? And what sort of thanks do we get for it?"
- Henry Lawson
(Related: Home, Poor)
"Why on earth do we want closer connection with England? We have little in common with English people except our language. We are fast becoming an entirely different people."
- Henry Lawson
(Related: People, Connection, Earth, EnglEnglish, Language, Want)
"My heritage is English, so I'm proud to be back here."
- Nicholas Lea
(Related: English)
"I disliked singing in English and neither liked the story nor the character of Cressida."
- Walter Legge
(Related: Character, English, Singing)
"English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously."
- Vivien Leigh
(Related: Age, People, English, France, Learning)
"I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh."
- Mario Lemieux
(Related: English)
"An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him."
- Alan Jay Lerner
"Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit."
- Jonathan Lethem
(Related: English, Writing)
"I spend more time learning about Buddhism than English, which is why my English today is still bad."
- Jet Li
(Related: Time, Buddhism, English, Learning, Today)
"An Englishman teaching an American about food is like the blind leading the one-eyed."
- A. J. Liebling
(Related: Food, American, Blind, Leading, Teaching)
"Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland."
- Gyorgy Ligeti
(Related: English, Favorite, London)
"I haven't spoken English with native speakers in several months. I've been speaking Arabic."
- John Walker Lindh
(Related: English, Months)
"English is my second language, but in Hong Kong, they don't know that I'm from China. They think I'm from Hollywood because all the films they see are from here. China and Hong Kong are very different places, but they're starting to merge. Still the culture is very different."
- Bai Ling
(Related: Culture, English, Hollywood, Language)
"If you see the Sopranos, you're not going to be speaking in the Shakespearean English."
- Lucy Liu
(Related: English)
"I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the English landscape in search of ancient field systems, drove roads, indications of prehistoric settlement."
- Penelope Lively
(Related: History, English)
"The time given to athletic contests and the injuries incurred on the playing field are part of the price which the English-speaking race has paid for being world conquerors."
- Henry Cabot Lodge
(Related: Time, Being, English, Race, World)
"John Henry Newman was as English as roast beef, even if he lacked a passion for cricket."
- Clifford Longley
(Related: Cricket, English, Passion)
"Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears."
- F. L. Lucas
(Related: Trust, English, Principles, Prose, Rules, Sound, Writers)
"I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors."
- Thomas B. Macaulay
(Related: History, Life, Dignity, English, Succeed)
"The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power."
- Thomas B. Macaulay
(Related: Beauty, Power, Bible, English, Language)
"I went to a catholic public school St Helens and learned English by watching bugs bunny cartoons."
- Nick Mancuso
(Related: Bugs, Cartoons, English, Public, School)
"Oh, I'm not English, I cannot talk on behalf of an English person. I'm French. I can say about French. They are quite emotional, though, and they talk about their emotions."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Emotions, English, Talk)
"Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Acting, English, Language)
"So, sometimes, when I'm not happy with my performance and I have to think, I will think in English."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Performance, English, Will)
"There are some sounds that English singers find quite difficult to manipulate."
- Neville Marriner
(Related: English)
"Also, I have found that I really like to work in English. It's very strange because it's exactly the opposite of what I thought it would be like."
- Olivier Martinez
(Related: Work, Thought, English)
"If you want to be happy, live discreetly. Does that make sense in English?"
- Olivier Martinez
(Related: English, Sense, Want)
"Do not suppose, dearest Sir, that I am so short-sighted as to destroy my life by English preaching, or any other preaching. St. Paul did much good by his preaching, but how much more by his writings."
- Henry Martyn
(Related: Life, English, Preaching)
"The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour."
- Karl Marx
(Related: English, Revolution, Spirit)
"If an Englishman gets run down by a truck he apologizes to the truck."
- Jackie Mason
"The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'."
- John McCarthy
(Related: Difference, English, Language, Liberal, Word)
"To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life."
- David McCullough
(Related: Life, People, College, English, Infinite, Now)
"They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York."
- Roddy McDowall
(Related: English, Play)
"Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity."
- John McGahern
(Related: English, Identity, Ireland, Irish, Language, Rain, Speech, Will)
"Yes, for my undergrad I majored in Criminal Justice and minored in Political Science and English."
- Matthew McGrory
(Related: Science, English, Justice)
"The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it."
- Scott McNealy
(Related: English, Right, Windows)
"I don't know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there's a good English phrase for it - cold war."
- Golda Meir
(Related: War, English, Fancy, Word)
"Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Baseball, English, Opera)
"Well, I am from India and I wanted to make films in English for the international market in India. So that was really the main thing, and then of course economically it was cheaper to make films in India."
- Ismail Merchant
(Related: English)
"England and Greece are friends. English blood was shed on Greek soil in the war against fascism, and Greeks gave their lives to protect English pilots."
- Melina Mercouri
(Related: War, Blood, EnglEnglish, Fascism, Friends, Greece)
"Or a White Englishman would rather smash a White Frenchman than a Jew! Crazy!"
- Tom Metzger
"An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one."
- George Mikes
"The world still consists of two clearly divided groups: the English and the foreigners. One group consists of less than 50 million people; the other of 3,950 million. The latter group does not really count."
- George Mikes
(Related: People, English, Foreigners, World)
"Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game."
- George Mikes
(Related: Life, Cricket, English)
"President Bush gave his first-ever presidential radio address in both English and Spanish. Reaction was mixed, however, as people were trying to figure out which one was which."
- Dennis Miller
(Related: People, English, First, President, Trying)
"I say 20 words in English. I say money, money, money, and I say hot dog! I say yes, no and I say money, money, money and I say turkey sandwich and I say grape juice."
- Carmen Miranda
(Related: Money, English, Turkey, Words)
"When I entered college, it was to study liberal arts. At the University of Pennsylvania, I studied English literature, but I fell in love with broadcasting, with telling stories about other people's exploits."
- Andrea Mitchell
(Related: Love, People, College, English, Liberal, Literature, Study, University)
"For me, even just being English was a whole sort of experience in as much as I'm Australian."
- Radha Mitchell
(Related: Experience, Being, English)
"The true sovereign is not the American president nor the English king, but the Lord of the Second Advent."
- Sun Myung Moon
(Related: American, English, President)
"I know all about you. You're the people waiting on the shoreline with the warm towels and the hot chocolate after the woman swims the English Channel."
- Gwen Moore
(Related: People, English, Waiting, Woman)
"Should such an ignorant people lead the world? How did it come to this in the first place? 82 percent of us don't even have a passport! Just a handful can speak a language other than English."
- Michael Moore
(Related: People, English, First, Language, World)
"The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English."
- Robert Morgan
(Related: Poetry, English)
"The short English miles are delightful for walking. You are always pleased to find, every now and then, in how short a time you have walked a mile, though, no doubt, a mile is everywhere a mile, I walk but a moderate pace, and can accomplish four English miles in an hour."
- Karl Philipp Moritz
(Related: Time, Doubt, English, Now, Walking)
"I feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking football. But I also have things to give them."
- Jose Mourinho
(Related: English, Football, Open, Thinking)
"You see how Spanish, Italians, Portuguese play football. I don't say they are perfect, I say English football has a few things to learn from them in the same way they have a lot of things to learn from English football."
- Jose Mourinho
(Related: English, Football, Play)
"And I think because of the passion of every English player and every English supporter, and every English journalist for the game, most of the game is played with passion, love for football and instinct, but in football you also have to think."
- Jose Mourinho
(Related: Love, English, Football, Instinct, Passion)
"At the very least we should be given a bit of credit and a little bit of space, and maybe the media should think we could help them discover why English teams do not win European competitions."
- Jose Mourinho
(Related: Credit, English, Help, Media, Space)
"It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Life, English, Jokes, Laughter, Occupation, Old, Trying)
"No one's going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude."
- Rupert Murdoch
(Related: Travel, Attitude, English, Language)
"Where words can be translated into equivalent words, the style of an original can be closely followed; but no translation which aims at being written in normal English can reproduce the style of Aristotle."
- Gilbert Murray
(Related: Being, English, Style, Words)
"Let us work toward greater cooperation with all Caribbean Countries, whether we speak English, Dutch, French or Spanish, whether we are independent or not, and whether we be island or continental territories."
- Said Musa
(Related: Work, Cooperation, Countries, English)
"Things they don't understand always cause a sensation among the English."
- Alfred de Musset
(Related: Cause, English)
"Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour."
- Mike Myers
(Related: American, Being, Canada, English)
"Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.: That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is."
- Ogden Nash
"I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have."
- Florence Nightingale
(Related: Women, Bed, English, Woman)
"I think we have really integrated well around Manchester. This is the place where we feel at home. We like it here, we love the English way of life and we prefer it much, much more than the south of Europe."
- Ruud van Nistelrooy
(Related: Life, Love, Home, English, Europe)
"In my teens, I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more, so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar."
- Trevor Nunn
(Related: Thought, English, Literature)
"My parents were born in Norfolk and spent their early years working in the big houses of that rural English county, my mother as a cook and my father as a handyman and chauffeur."
- Paul Nurse
(Related: Mother, Father, English, Houses, Parents, Years)
"Apparently Arnold was inspired by President Bush, who proved you can be a successful politician in this country even if English is your second language."
- Conan O'Brien
(Related: Successful, Country, English, Language, President)
"We were a Western civilisation, an English speaking civilisation, both NZ and Australia, and we had all these influences coming from both Great Britain and America to us; sending us their culture in the shape and form of movies and television."
- Richard O'Brien
(Related: Movies, America, Culture, English, Television)
"An Englishmen thinks seated; a Frenchmen standing; an American pacing, an Irishman, afterwards."
- Austin O'Malley
(Related: American)
"Find a priest who understands English and doesn't look like Rasputin."
- Aristotle Onassis
(Related: English)
"Oh that's very English, that's probably why. They just go "LOL" in America."
- Kelly Osbourne
(Related: America, English)
"Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house."
- James Otis
(Related: English, Freedom, Liberty, Now)
"The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head."
- Wilfred Owen
(Related: Kiss, English, Feet)
"Assange is not a 'journalist' any more than the 'editor' of al-Qaeda's new English-language magazine 'Inspire' is a 'journalist.' He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."
- Sarah Palin
(Related: Blood, English)
"I've done quite a few adverts. I've also done some presenting and acting work in Spain. I did a lot of Spanish education videos for people wanting to learn English."
- Christopher Parker
(Related: Education, Work, People, Acting, English, Spain)
"Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days."
- Evan Parker
(Related: Education, People, English, Force, Jazz, Musicians, Pretty, Training)
"Come English Settlement, I had it in my head that I didn't want to tour."
- Andy Partridge
(Related: English, Want)
"Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard."
- Pope John Paul II
(Related: Time, History, Christ, English, First, Land, Preaching, Rome, Today, World)
"The English approach to ideas is not to kill them, but to let them die of neglect."
- Jeremy Paxman
(Related: Ideas, English, Neglect)
"If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan."
- Alan Perlis
(Related: Computer, English)
"In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages."
- Alan Perlis
(Related: English, Programming, Word)
"Give immediate instruction to all your posts in said territory, under your direction, at no time and on no pretence to hoist, or suffer be hoisted, the English flag."
- Zebulon Pike
(Related: Time, Direction, English)
"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms never never never!"
- William Pitt
(Related: American, Country)
"All the English speakers, or almost all, have difficulties with the gender of words."
- Bernard Pivot
(Related: Difficulties, English, Gender, Words)
"The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture."
- Bernard Pivot
(Related: Country, Culture, English, Grace, Language, World)
"It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's."
- Christopher Plummer
(Related: Work, American, Culture, English, Hell, Voice)
"My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method."
- Frederik Pohl
(Related: Science, English, Fiction, Literature, Old)
"I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean, the clues were in the poems, but they didn't read them very carefully, and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene."
- Peter Porter
(Related: Poetry, People, EnglEnglish, Poems, Years)
"Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them."
- Terry Prachett
(Related: English, Mind, Words)
"I look for poetry in English because it's the only language I read."
- Jack Prelutsky
(Related: Poetry, English, Language)
"I think maybe the English don't want to try something and look stupid, because they are a bit reserved."
- Alain Prost
(Related: English, Want)
"I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!"
- Philip Pullman
(Related: Education, English, Importance, Literature, Reading, Years)
"After moving to England I did some recording and eventually formed an English band, this was together for quite a few years with only a keyboard replacement. The band had no name, just my name."
- Suzi Quatro
(Related: EnglEnglish, Name, Years)
"Among pacifists it was above all the English who always insisted on the importance of disarmament. They said that the man in the street would not understand the kind of pacifism that neglected to demand immediate restriction of armaments."
- Ludwig Quidde
(Related: English, Importance, Man, Pacifism)
"'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word."
- Willard Van Orman Quine
(Related: English, Training, Word)
"The Social-Democratic Federation took part in all the political and economic struggles of the English working class; it took pains to bring Socialist views home to them, not only through agitation and propaganda, but also by actions."
- Karl Radek
(Related: Home, Actions, Agitation, Class, English, Propaganda)
"I was more excited than scared, at the opportunity to work in an English movie."
- Aishwarya Rai
(Related: Work, Opportunity, English)
"I've been worked over by the English press because there's an assumption that my politics are identical with my wife's, and for that matter that my wife's politics are identical with her politics of 20 years ago."
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Politics, Wife, English, Press, Years)
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
- Ronald Reagan
(Related: Government, English, Help, Language, Words)
"It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell."
- Helen Reddy
(Related: People, American, English, Hell)
"Fraud, robbery, and murder have characterized the English usurpation of the government of our country. Why, for the last fifty years we have been robbed in the matter of taxes of hundreds of millions."
- John Edward Redmond
(Related: Government, Country, English, Fraud, Murder, Taxes, Years)
"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."
- Cecil Rhodes
(Related: Life, First)
"The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master."
- Samuel Richardson
(Related: English, Lady, Gentleman, Now)
"There were sometimes from forty to sixty English machines, but unfortunately the Germans were often in the minority. With them quality was more important than quantity."
- Manfred von Richthofen
(Related: Quality, English, Machines, Minority, Quantity)
"The English had hit upon a splendid joke. They intended to catch me or to bring me down."
- Manfred von Richthofen
(Related: English)
"Everything depends on whether we have for opponents those French tricksters or those daring rascals, the English. I prefer the English. Frequently their daring can only be described as stupidity. In their eyes it may be pluck and daring."
- Manfred von Richthofen
(Related: English, Eyes, May, Opponents, Stupidity)
"The English countryside is the most staggeringly beautiful place. I can't spend as much time there as I like, but I like everything about it. I like fishing, I like clay- pigeon shooting."
- Guy Ritchie
(Related: Time, English, Fishing)
"I read the greens in Spanish, but putt in English."
- Chi Chi Rodriguez
(Related: English)
"I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew."
- Michelle Rodriguez
(Related: Mom, English, Word, Years)
"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country."
- Theodore Roosevelt
(Related: Country, English, Years)
"If the English want a king, it is their business. If the Russians want communism, it is their business. If the Americans want our form of government, it is our business."
- Julius Rosenberg
(Related: Business, Government, Americans, Communism, English, Want)
"The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
(Related: English, Parliament)
"The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
(Related: English, Pride, Vanity)
"What I appreciated was the fact that the script delved into how Australians were - and still are - condescended to by the English."
- Geoffrey Rush
(Related: English, Fact)
"You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion."
- John Ruskin
(Related: Religion, Action, English, Passion)
"I had one companion. He was a teacher from the Ukraine who spoke English so we could communicate a bit. I learnt a few Russian words, but it was hard to concentrate."
- Mathias Rust
(Related: English, Words)
"Until the June 1967 war I was completely caught up in the life of a young professor of English. Beginning in 1968, I started to think, write, and travel as someone who felt himself to be directly involved in the renaissance of Palestinian life and politics."
- Edward Said
(Related: Life, Politics, Travel, War, Beginning, English, June)
"But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time."
- George Saintsbury
(Related: Time, Genius, English, Man)
"I can remember only a few of the strange and curious words now dead but living and spoken by the English people a thousand years ago."
- Carl Sandburg
(Related: People, English, Living, Now, Words, Years)
"English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Science, Diplomacy, English, Language)
"These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: English, Simplicity)
"One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Possibility, English, Simplicity, Word)
"Sometimes I'll go by and there are a couple of swans, the next day it's a few ducks. I'd like to stop there every day for a year and capture how it changes, then put it all together to create an incredible image of a traditional English scene."
- Graeme Le Saux
(Related: Day, English, Swans)
"I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer."
- Fred Savage
(Related: English, Hearing, Moments, School, Writing)
"Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage."
- Marilyn vos Savant
(Related: English, Language, Rules)
"The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine."
- Dorothy L. Sayers
(Related: English, Language, Machine, Simplicity)
"Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds."
- Dorothy L. Sayers
(Related: English, Vocabulary, Writer)
"I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader."
- Dick Schaap
(Related: Being, English, Gifts, Language)
"I was also in love with the English language."
- Dick Schaap
(Related: Love, English, Language)
"I played English football - soccer - instead of American football, because we couldn't afford the equipment."
- Wally Schirra
(Related: American, English, Football, Soccer)
"In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born. It doesn't make any difference who your parents were. It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Related: Country, Difference, English, Parents)
"Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale."
- Robert Falcon Scott
(Related: Heart, Courage, Endurance)
"We are showing that Englishmen can still die with a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end."
- Robert Falcon Scott
(Related: End, Fighting, Spirit)
"We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past."
- Robert Falcon Scott
(Related: Death, Help, Journey, Past, Regret, Writing)
"So, when I got the contract for my album, even though it was an English record, my manager insisted on making sure we would record in Spanish as well, and it worked out really well for me."
- Jon Secada
(Related: Manager, English)
"From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber."
- Harry Seidler
(Related: America, English)
"Most previous immigrants came to the United States to become Americans, with no intention of returning home. They relinquished their ties with their homeland. English was their key to prosperity, and they worked hard to master it."
- John Shadegg
(Related: Home, Americans, English, Intention, Key, Prosperity, states, United)
"Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish."
- Shakira
(Related: Challenge, English, Songs, Spirit, Want, Writing)
"The promise of America is one immigration policy for all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of rules for everybody. We cannot welcome those to come and then try and act as though any culture will not be respected or treated inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and preach "one language." No one gave them an English test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for America."
- Al Sharpton
(Related: Policy, Act, America, Canada, Community, Culture, English, Fight, Iraq, Language, Promise, Rules, Will)
"To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have."
- Fiona Shaw
(Related: Business, English, Irish, Joy, Right)
"Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Communism, English, Socialism)
"What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?"
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Car, Politics, Mind, Will)
"An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable."
- George Bernard Shaw
"Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American."
- Irwin Shaw
(Related: American, English)
"I have no idea why one of our most original filmmakers would want to spend two years of his life translating someone else's movie from Spanish into English. And it wasn't such a good film in Spanish, either."
- Joel Siegel
(Related: Life, Idea, English, Film, Want, Years)
"The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation they do not want to attract attention."
- Edith Sitwell
(Related: Attention, Dress, Mouse, Trouble, Want, Will)
"This is what Hollywood tends to do. It tends to disregard tradition, history and anything factual, twisting it and turning it and making it all okay regardless of what the English may think of it."
- Christian Slater
(Related: History, English, Hollywood, May, Tradition)
"Who can doubt that between the English and the French, between the Scotch and the Irish, there are differences of character which have profoundly affected and still affect the course of history?"
- Goldwin Smith
(Related: History, Character, Doubt, English, Irish)
"The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke."
- Goldwin Smith
(Related: Character, Arrogance, English)
"I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is."
- Martin C. Smith
(Related: American, English, Voice)
"This Englishwoman is so refined, She has no bosom and no behind."
- Stevie Smith
"I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English, but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect."
- John Philip Sousa
(Related: Music, Audiences, Cities, English, Respect, World)
"I get work because I'm primarily a novelist but I've become script doctor. I can work back and forth between French and English."
- Norman Spinrad
(Related: Work, English)
"English is taking over the world. I just wrote a piece about it. And it's not by design. The United States dominates because it's the biggest market."
- Norman Spinrad
(Related: Design, English, states, United, World)
"An English man does not travel to see English men."
- Laurence Sterne
(Related: Men, Travel, English, Man)
"Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility."
- Wallace Stevens
(Related: American, Americans, English, Literature, Nothing, Sensibility)
"I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since."
- Anne Stevenson
"I'd forgotten I'd done the anime called Spirited Away, the English version of a Japanese film."
- David Ogden Stiers
(Related: English, Film)
"There are reasons for believing that the English increase will far surpass others, and that the diffusion of the United States will ultimately produce the general population of America."
- Ezra Stiles
(Related: America, English, Population, states, United, Will)
"With the requests of some he complied, and has published a discourse, delivered before the Society for recovering drowned persons, which may be justly pronounced one of the most beautiful and interesting sermons in the English language."
- John Strachan
(Related: Society, English, Language, May, Sermons)
"Englishmen have always loved Moliere."
- Lytton Strachey
"English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind."
- Lytton Strachey
(Related: Drama, English, Literature, Measure, Mind, Shakespeare, Value)
"Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments."
- Mark Strand
(Related: Poetry, English, Writing)
"A Shakespeare could have arisen only on English soil. In the same way, your great dramatists and poets express the nature and essence of the Norwegian people, but they also express that which is universally valid for all mankind."
- Gustav Stresemann
(Related: Nature, People, English, Mankind, Poets, Shakespeare)
"When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it."
- Billy Sunday
(Related: English, Language)
"The English press treated the world premiere of my first talking picture as a major event."
- Gloria Swanson
(Related: English, First, Press, Talking, World)
"Intended to serve as an introduction to both the linguistic and also the practical study of spoken English."
- Henry Sweet
(Related: English, Study)
"It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it."
- Max von Sydow
(Related: Love, Work, English, Language, Now)
"I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor."
- Max von Sydow
(Related: Mother, Actor, English, Language, Tongue)
"Nowadays, anyone who cannot speak English and is incapable of using the Internet is regarded as backward."
- Al Waleed bin Talal
(Related: English, Internet)
"I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese."
- Amy Tan
(Related: Mother, People, Arguments, English)
"Those were the days, you know. It's an English thing; as soon as it's gets to 6 pm, you have to go and have a drink. We used to stick to that religiously."
- Andy Taylor
(Related: English)
"We took Beowulf, the epic poem in Old English, and put it right together with John Gardner's contemporary retelling. If you bring it into today, we really feel that it has something very fresh to say now."
- Julie Taymor
(Related: English, Now, Old, Right, Today)
"People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different."
- Kristin Scott Thomas
(Related: People, English, Saying)
"Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months."
- Kristin Scott Thomas
(Related: Acting, English, Months)
"But the citizens of Cincinnati loved their Reds because they won, no matter what their addresses had been the year before. They rooted for the Old-English 'C' on the players' shirts."
- John Thorn
(Related: Old)
"My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language."
- James Thurber
(Related: Answers, English, Expression, Fact, Grace, Language, Lies, Opposition, Value)
"The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
(Related: Anxiety, English, Eyes, Satisfaction, Want)
"Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true."
- Pete Townshend
(Related: People, Being, Class, Difficulties, English, Hypocrisy)
"There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel."
- Anthony Trollope
(Related: Happiness, Love, End, English)
"The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians."
- Robert Trout
(Related: American, Battle, English, Fact, Revolution, Philosophy)
"We were very kindly received by the English merchants to whom my companion had letters, and we set ourselves to learn what was the real state of things in Mexico."
- Edward Burnett Tylor
(Related: English, Letters, State)
"I was a terrible English student."
- Leon Uris
(Related: English)
"English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it."
- Leon Uris
(Related: Ability, English, Example, Writing)
"I don't want to play only Latin women. I want to have roles in English."
- Paz Vega
(Related: Women, English, Play, Want)
"More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor."
- John W. Vessey, Jr.
(Related: English, Language, Understanding)
"Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica, mom sang in English and Italian, and I played guitar. I'm so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time."
- Tony Visconti
(Related: Dad, Experience, Mom, Time, Christmas, English, Guitar, Past)
"It's difficult for me to feel that a solid page without the breakups of paragraphs can be interesting. I break mine up perhaps sooner than I should in terms of the usage of the English language."
- A. E. van Vogt
(Related: English, Language)
"Why does there exist a global American entertainment industry, but there isn't an equivalent coming from France or Italy? This is the case simply because the English language opens the whole world to the American cinema."
- Andrzej Wajda
(Related: American, Cinema, English, Entertainment, France, Italy, Language, World)
"I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry."
- Diane Wakoski
(Related: Poetry, American, English, Language)
"The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself."
- Derek Walcott
(Related: English, Language, Property)
"Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors."
- Alice Walker
(Related: English, Tea)
"My favorite subject probably was math. I love math. Figures just intrigue me. I was really good at math. English probably was my worst subject. But I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write poetry all the time."
- Herschel Walker
(Related: Love, Poetry, Time, English, Favorite)
"Others may use the ocean as their road; Only the English make it their abode."
- Edmund Waller
(Related: English, May, Ocean, Road)
"English girls' schools today providing the higher education are, so far as my knowledge goes, worthily representative of that astonishing rise in the intellectual standards of women which has taken place in the last half-century."
- Mary A. Ward
(Related: Education, Women, Knowledge, English, Girls, Schools, Today)
"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- Booker T. Washington
(Related: English, Unconscious, Vocabulary, Words)
"You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: England)
"Dreams do come true, even for someone who couldn't speak English and never had a music lesson or much of an education."
- Lawrence Welk
(Related: Dreams, Education, Music, English)
"In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Countries, English, Fact, Years)
"I speak two languages, Body and English."
- Mae West
(Related: Body, English)
"The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy."
- Rebecca West
(Related: American, English, Reason, Struggle, Vote)
"The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell."
- James Whistler
(Related: English, Folk, Majority, May, Will)
"English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street."
- E. B. White
(Related: Education, English, Judgment, Luck, Taste)
"In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent four very miserable years as a colonial at an English school."
- Patrick White
(Related: English, Holidays, London, School, Visit, Years)
"Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all."
- Walt Whitman
(Related: Time, Growth, English, Language, Race)
"If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Society, English, Irish, Talk)
"It's like there are all these languages available, especially in terms of image. Why confine yourself to only English? There's all these languages and possibilities and concepts to speak or communicate with."
- William Wiley
(Related: English, Possibilities)
"We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself."
- Robin Williams
(Related: Dictators, English, Language, President, Pretty)
"It even has the same phraseology as the English orders of knighthood, companions and this sort of thing."
- George Woodcock
(Related: English)
"My early wounds were the English school system among other things. It wasn't merely the discipline, it was the ways in which boys got what was called the school spirit."
- George Woodcock
(Related: Discipline, Boys, English, School, Spirit, Wounds)
"The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm."
- Alexander Woollcott
(Related: Ability, English, Flying)
"We lived on a farm in the English countryside, where we wrote a lot of our music. You really were treated like an artist during those days-not like product, which is now the mode."
- Gary Wright
(Related: Music, Artist, English, Now)
"You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements."
- William Butler Yeats
(Related: God, Truth, People, Idea, Compromise, Lies)
"Ang Lee was educated in the West and his English is good."
- Zhang Yimou
(Related: English)
"For over ten years I always had, but I don't speak English."
- Zhang Yimou
(Related: English, Years)
"I've always enjoyed writing, I graduated with a degree in English; I've done bits of journalism."
- Michael York
(Related: English, Journalism, Writing)
"China's cinema has been rising for some time; it has more exposure, so my chances of becoming internationally known are better. But the first thing I have to do is learn English. If I can grasp the language, then perhaps I can think about the U.S."
- Ziyi Zhang
(Related: Time, Cinema, English, First, Language)
"After I learn more English, I'll work hard and make more films."
- Zhang Ziyi
(Related: Work, English)