English Quotes

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.

Verse comedy is interesting to me because of the challenge of writing in rhymed couplets, which is not a form that's usually amenable to English, yet to me it gives great possibility for comedy.

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.

So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education.

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.

I'm influenced by a lot of filmmakers; I like English filmmakers because I feel a kin to them.

My parents were both Spanish-speakers and they used to speak to me and my siblings in Spanish and we'd answer them in 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!

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.

I could sing in English before I could understand it because I phonetically learned it from the musicals.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language.

They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York.

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.

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.

For example, I loved English and history at school. I would have loved to have done a degree in either. But my Mom said I didn't have time for university.

The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.

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.'

It even has the same phraseology as the English orders of knighthood, companions and this sort of thing.

When I was at school, I was terrible at algebra and arithmetic, but I was always the best at English and literature. And acting, of course.

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.

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.

My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.

I am making sure, as the governor of a territory, that our kids speak fluent English. But having said that, I will tell my wife I love her in Spanish, and I will pray in Spanish, and no one from Washington should come down here and tell us how to go about it.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?