English Quotes · Page 27

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

— Jilly Cooper

“Every Anglophile has his own private England which is, of course, unrecognizable to the English.”

— Mark Dery

My mother was a children's librarian, and I was raised on lots of English children's literature. It gave me this weird idea…

— Jefferson Mays

When the Killers first came out, a lot of people thought we were English, and it touched a chord in me, because…

— Brandon Flowers

In America, people will look past a criminal record. In England, they try and shut you up.

— Giggs

The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.

— Umberto Eco

Everybody knows that England is the world of betting men, who are of a higher class than mere gamblers: to bet is…

— Jules Verne

There wasn't a single good character in 'Titanic' who was English and this is typical.

— David Warner

It's ironic that the growth of Scottish nationalism has precipitated in the English the sort of hand-wringing the Scots have always done…

— Irvine Welsh

“The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense…

— Sara Sheridan

If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know…

— Julian Barnes

There are hundreds of thousands of Scots who acknowledge English, Irish or Welsh parts of their very being. Lives and destinies are…

— Michael Ignatieff

We spoke French at home and I didn't know any English until I went to school. My mother was French and met…

— Joanne Harris

I'm working on a film called 'Bonnie.' Bonnie means water. It's in English, and it's dealing with a future world in a…

— Shekhar Kapur

The English prison system is altogether mediaeval and outworn. In some of its details, the system has improved since they began to…

— Emmeline Pankhurst

If you're an English actor, and you're asked to do an episode - especially the Christmas episode - of 'Downton Abbey,' you…

— Janet Montgomery

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.

— George Bernard Shaw

I speak English and Spanish. I write in Spanish; my books are published in English.

— Isabel Allende

The terrorists haven't won, and we should tell them in plain English, 'No, there will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.'

— Renee Ellmers

The English treatment of the Irish was appalling. It was absolutely appalling.

— Perdita Weeks

All Englishmen talk as if they've got a bushel of plums stuck in their throats, and then after swallowing them get constipated…

— W. C. Fields

Intended to serve as an introduction to both the linguistic and also the practical study of spoken English.

— Henry Sweet

It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French.

— John Jeremiah Sullivan

“Bad people? What kind of bad people? Members of the Church of Satan? Insurance salesmen? People who don’t speak English?”

— Wayne Gerard Trotman

Only in England is the perversion of language regarded as a victory for democracy.

— Anthony Burgess

Nothing in my younger life could have told me I would have needed to know how to speak English.

— Omar Sy

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of things American - but when American people do British stuff, it's so…

— Martin Freeman

I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech.

— Tom Stoppard

The English National Opera does have some terrific productions, which are accessible, and they're not too ridiculously expensive.

— John Hurt

those two wholesome defects of the French people, malice and curiosity, both of which are essential to its greatness.

— Marthe Bibesco

It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.

— William Shakespeare

I was very priggish as a child. I saved up for a book on medieval English nunneries, for which I was despised…

— Claire Tomalin

“And he said... ...crossing your' 't' isn't as important as crossing your legs.”

— Anthony T. Hincks

Nineteenth-century English literature I know; 19th-century sewage systems, not so much.

— Glen Duncan

If you're French, you definitely have to respect Tony Parker for what he did.

— Evan Fournier

I studied in American school, so yes, I grew up speaking English and Spanish. Obviously, Spanish is my first language.

— Eiza Gonzalez

I'm three quarters Scottish, but I sound English. I don't really see British as a race.

— Joanna Lumley

I love the musicality of English. French sounds flat. In English, you can play with pitch.

— Eva Green

“Poor England. Too much history for its acreage. Years grow inwards here, like my toenails.”

— David Mitchell

The fun is in figuring out why the French are susceptible to such tripe.

— Bill O'Brien