Modern World Quotes - Page 14

• The American dream? We don't have a dream in Britain because we're bloody awake!

  Al Murray

  Dream, America, World

  19 Copy quote

• More action packed than a Cardiff pub with Anne Robinson.

  Jonathan Ross

  America, World, Action

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• The Welsh... I mean, what are they for?

  Anne Robinson

  Mean, America, World

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• You have city centre pubs where men go to meet girls, not realising that all girls in city centre pubs have thighs like tug boats and morals that would surprise a zoo animal.

  Jeremy Clarkson

  Girl, Zoos, Animal

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• The fact is that Britain is the most warlike nation on earth. In the history of armed combat, we are the only democracy to have declared war on another democracy - England versus Finland in the second world war, in case you're interested - and we're always at the front of the queue when Johnny Foreigner gets a bit uppity. Who stood up to the Kaiser? Who stood up to Adolf? And let's not forget the Argies. What other country would have sent its fleet halfway round the world and lost 250 men to protect a flock of sheep and some oil that might or might not be there? We're still at it.

  Jeremy Clarkson

  Country, War, Men

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• We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.

  John Mortimer

  America, World, Scum

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• The streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London telephone booth to look like that it would have to be guarded around the clock by the SAS.

  Clive James

  America, Looks, World

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

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• In between the Queen and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, sat Tony Richardson, looking very calm. Later on it emerged that this was because, having not been apprised of the placement until he was about to sit down, he had died of fright. To have expired was to be fortunate.

  Clive James

  Queens, America, World

  Clive James (2013). “Snakecharmers In Texas”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

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• Newspapers, magazines and other publications have the constitutional right to be offensive, even disgusting. As evidence of that, just watch this space regularly.

  Mike Royko

  America, Space, Watches

  Mike Royko (2014). “Mike Royko: The Chicago Tribune Collection 1984-1997”, p.2366, Agate Digital

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• The suburbs dream of violence.

  J. G. Ballard

  Dream, America, World

  J. G. Ballard (2006). “Kingdom Come”, HarperCollins UK

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• The BBC is very much in thrall to all this techno cross-fertilisation, in much the same way that print journalists are now encouraged to blog. To the point where there is an emerging breed of sub-editors who take perfectly well-written and punctuated original copy and rewrite it so that it resembles a text message written by a 14-year-old under the influence of Bacardi Breezers.

  Kathryn Flett

  Editors, America, Years

  "Thank goodness it's a jungle out there" by Kathryn Flett, www.theguardian.com. November 18, 2006.

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• The advent of the mobile phone was a disaster. We are forced to listen, open-mouthed, to other people's intimate conversations. Increasingly, we are all in our virtual bubbles when we are out in public, whether we are texting, listening to iPods, reading or just staring dangerously at other people.

  Lynne Truss

  Reading, Intimate Conversation, Ipods

  4 Copy quote

• If I wasn't me, I'd want to be me.

  Eddie Irvine

  America, World, Want

  5 Copy quote

• Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid?

  Theodore Dalrymple

  Stupid, America, Age

  20 Copy quote

• In the short walk between his aeroplane and reaching the outside world at Heathrow, Michael Bywater encountered no fewer than 93 separate notices telling him off for things he hadn't done or which hadn't even occurred to him to do. Being bossed and patronised are two sensations that most sophisticated adults would sooner do without and yet we are bossed and patronised, by the media, by politicians, by business, by advertising agencies and the public services, more now than at any other time in our history. Why should this be?

  Alexander Waugh

  Media, Two, America

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• America, the Idea of: We yearned for its beer and jazz, its smoke-filled nightclubs, its Edward Hopper bars, the melancholy of rainy Manhattan Gershwin nights... the America we yearned for has gone. Did it ever exist?

  Michael Bywater

  Beer, Night, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• I would be looking up from a pool of blood and hearing my wife ask 'How do I reload this thing'.

  Dick Armey

  America, Blood, Wife

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• I'm all for teaching creation and allowing prayers in schools, as soon as scholars begin teaching Darwinism and geometry in church.

  J. Michael Straczynski

  Prayer, Teaching, School

  5 Copy quote

• So this judge in Virginia rules that a lesbian wasn't fit to raise her own daughter because she might grow up to be a lesbian, and gives custody to the lesbian's mother. And I'm thinking, "She's already raised one lesbian."

  Chris Cannon

  Daughter, Mother, Growing Up

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• An Englishman's car is his castle on wheels.

  Simon Jenkins

  America, Car, Castles

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• From the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which over crowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Kindness, America, Cities

  Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

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• Everyone wants to be young, beautiful and rich. I don't say that scornfully: there are worse things to want to be. But that's why, for example, people don't begrudge Kate Moss how much she earns for a day's work but will fulminate over the take-home pay of some fat, old Water Board exec.

  Nigella Lawson

  Beautiful, Home, America

  "Never mind the size, just feel the price". www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2000.

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• Large motorway flyovers are the cathedrals of the modern world.

  Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn

  Bridges, World, Modern

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• People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!

  Eddie Vedder

  Religious, Growing Up, Animal

  "Pearl Jam: 'People get that this means something'" by Dave Simpson, www.theguardian.com. August 13, 2009.

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• America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

  John Updike

  Inspirational, Truth, America

  1980 Problems,'How to Love America and Leave It at the Same Time'.

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