England Quotes - Page 31

• My mother and my father had very, very strong Scots accents. We were Australian, and in those days when I was young, I spoke with a much more of an Australian accent than I have now. However I knew that if I went to England to become an actor, which I was determined to, I knew that I had to get rid of the Australian accent. We were colonials, we were Down Under somewhere, we were those little people Over There. But I was determined to become an Englishman. So I did.

  George Ogilvie

  Mother, Strong, Father

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• I'd spent ten years in London, writing and performing my own comedy shows. They gave me the Cheers [scenes], and I thought it was the springboard for chatting about the show, because in England, that's what you do. So I walk in, and I'm looking around, and Jimmy Burrows said, "What are you looking at? You're not here to have a conversation; you're here to audition."

  Shelley Long

  Cheer, Writing, Years

  Source: www.gq.com

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• I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.

  Jim Jefferies

  Kids, College, Singing

  Source: montrealrampage.com

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• Everything is 'colossalized' - events, fortunes, accidents, climate, conversation, ambitions - everything is in the extreme ... They can't even have a tram run off a line, which in England or France might kill one or two people, without its making a holocaust of half a street full. ... The thing which surprises me is they should still employ animals of normal size; one would expect to see elephants and mammoths drawing the hansoms and carts!

  Elinor Glyn

  Running, Ambition, Animal

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• What Americans call cross-ventilation, the English call draughts.

  Hermione Gingold

  Crosses, Draught, Ventilation

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• Without class differences, England would cease to be the living theatre it is.

  Anthony Burgess

  Class, Differences, Theatre

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• England is the only civilised country in the world where it is etiquette to fall on the food like a wolf the moment it is served. Elsewhere it is comme il faut to wait until everybody has helped himself to everything and until everything on everybody's plate is stone cold.

  Virginia Graham

  Country, Fall, Waiting

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• The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary.

  Philip Guedalla

  Punishment, Justice, Sides

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• England is a country where people stay exactly as they are. The soul does not receive the slightest jolt.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Country, People, Soul

  Natalia Ginzburg, Dick Davis (1989). “The Little Virtues”, p.28, Arcade Publishing

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• But the English do not know what surprise is. No one ever turns his head to look at anyone else in the street.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Looks, Surprise, Turns

  Natalia Ginzburg, Dick Davis (1989). “The Little Virtues”, p.24, Arcade Publishing

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• The English have no imagination: and yet they do show imagination in two things - two only. In the evening-clothes worn by old ladies, and in their cafés.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Two, Clothes, Imagination

  Natalia Ginzburg, Dick Davis (1989). “The Little Virtues”, p.24, Arcade Publishing

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• I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Country, World, Melancholy

  Natalia Ginzburg, Dick Davis (1989). “The Little Virtues”, p.21, Arcade Publishing

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• Fog and hypocrisy - that is to say, shadow, convention, decency - these were the very things that lent to London its poetry and romance.

  Ada Leverson

  Fog, Hypocrisy, Romance

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• A butler in an English household should, however, be English, and as much like an archbishop as possible.

  Ada Leverson

  Should, Butlers, Household

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• England, where nobody ever says what they mean: and by denying feeling, kill it off stone-cold at the roots.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Mean, Roots, Feelings

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• Englishmen are said to love their laws; - that is the reason, I suppose, they give us so many of them, and in different editions.

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Law, Giving, Different

  Anna Letitia Barbauld, Lucy Aikin (1825). “The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld: in two volumes”, p.123

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• Britain possesses no climate, only weather.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Weather, Climate, Britain

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• Well-bred English people never have imagination.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  People, Imagination, Wells

  Dorothy L. Sayers (2012). “Clouds of Witness”, p.207, Open Road Media

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• rain is one thing the British do better than anybody else.

  Marilyn French

  Rain, British, One Thing

  Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.159, Open Road Media

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• Cows in India occupy the same position in society as women did in England before they got the vote. Woman was revered but not encouraged. Her life was one long obstacle race owing to the anxiety of man to put pedestals at her feet. While she was falling over the pedestals she was soothingly told that she must occupy a Place Apart - and indeed, so far Apart did her place prove to be that it was practically out of earshot. The cow in India finds her position equally lofty and tiresome. You practically never see a happy cow in India.

  Stella Benson

  Fall, Men, Race

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• Nine people out of ten (in Germany and England, perhaps ten people) would rather wait for their rights than fight for their rights.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Change, Fighting, Rights

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• I can assure you that the class system is alive and well and living in people's minds in England.

  Jilly Cooper

  Class System, People, Mind

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• There is something infinitely dingy about the word workshop. Pray that England doesn't become a nation of workshopkeepers.

  Jilly Cooper

  Praying, Workshops, Nations

  Jilly Cooper (2012). “Angels Rush In”, p.344, Random House

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• Whatever laudable qualities the English may possess in their selection, preparation, and consumption of food, elegance, originality, diversity, and imagination are not among them.

  Mary Ellen Chase

  Diversity, Imagination, Preparation

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• The English inn stands permanently planted at the confluence of the roads of history, memory, and romance.

  Martha Grimes

  Memories, Romance, Inns

  Martha Grimes (2013). “The Man with a Load of Mischief”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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