English Quotes

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.

I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.

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.

The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm.

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

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.

I had a very tough childhood. I came here from Italy in the '70s and didn't speak a word of English, so the kids at school tormented me. Truly, it was horrifying the names they called me, and the teachers never really did a thing to stop it.

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

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.

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.

It's not just the 'Grammys' that I've pulled out of. I also pulled out of the English awards as well. The reason that I wanted to pull out was because I believe very much that the music industry as a whole is mainly concerned with material success.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Things they don't understand always cause a sensation among the English.

I graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with an English literature degree and travelled for a year before going to work.

Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chords when I knew five!

I think it's part of being English, particularly if you are middle-class - you're always looking to be reminded that you are no good and you are always actually embarrassed about being successful.

You only have to look at London, where almost half of all primary school children speak English as a second language, to see the challenges we now face as a country. This isn't fair to anyone: how can people build relationships with their neighbours if they can't even speak the same language?

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.

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.

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.

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.

There's a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.

I'm rarely singing in English.

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.

I do love cricket - it's so very English.

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.

I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American.