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England Quotes

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England Quotes

“You have this impression from England that New Yorkers can be quite aggressive, but certainly the people that I've bumped into and the friends I've made here don't seem that way. Just walking down the street and asking for directions, people seem to be very helpful and happy to help.”

People Way Made Helping Seems Streets Walking England Asking Impression Helpful Aggressive New Yorkers

Author:Archie Panjabi

“Many things have changed in our culture here in England as a direct result of the Pistols: the whole street-fashion thing in London, for example, or the coverage of popular culture in the national press, or the fact that the film industry is now about young people making films about young British issues.”

“One of the depressing things in England is the total orthodoxy: the law is handed down from Downing Street.”

Law Streets England Depressing Orthodoxy Downing Downing Street

Author:David Hare

“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.”

Source: The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Essays, Letters and Memoirs (Illustrated): The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, Tanglewood Tales, Birthmark, Ghost of Doctor Harris… (Including Biographies and Literary Criticism)

“Objectively, class differences in accent, dress, manners, and general style of life are very much smaller; and one cannot, strolling about the street or travelling on a train, instantly identify a person's social background as one can in England. Subjectively, social relations are more natural and egalitarian, and less marked by deference, submissiveness, or snobbery, as one quickly discovers from the cab-driver, the barman, the air-hostess and the drug-store assistant.”

“From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance.”

Source: The Formation of national States in Western Europe

“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!”

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

Knows Looks Turns Streets England Surprise

Book:The Little Virtues

Source: The Little Virtues

“England that little gray island in the clouds where governments don't fall overnight and children don't sell themselves in the street and my money is safe.”

Children Littles Government Fall Streets Safe England Sells Clouds Islands Gray

Book:Serious Money

Source: Serious Money

“My uncle was the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane in the 1960s. He worked his way up from the street. He was homeless, but eventually he got a car so he could sell from the boot. And by the 1980s, he was a millionaire wholesaling to companies like Topshop. So in a way, fashion put me in England.”

Way Firsts Persons Company Streets Fashion Car England Sells Brown Boots Homeless Uncles 1960s Millionaire Lanes Topshop

Author:M.I.A.

“I grew up in the 80s in England: we'd wake up each morning and look out the window to see if the government had finally put Daleks on the streets.”

Ifs Looks Government Morning Streets Grew Grew Up Window England Wake Up Ass Bad Ass 80s Daleks

Author:Warren Ellis

“The longer I operated on Wall Street the more distrustful I became of tips and inside information of every kind. Given time, I believe that inside information can break the Bank of England”

Believe Kind Given I Believe Break Streets Information Wall England

Author:Bernard Baruch

“It just seemed like there were loads of bands in England writing about walking down the street and falling in love.”

Writing Fall Streets Walking Band England Falling In Love Load

Author:Simon Taylor-Davis

“One of the particular things that impressed me was one visitor [of NAACP] - I think it was - it wasn't the Prime Minister of England. We were located then on 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, up several flights of rickety stairs, and he came all the way up those stairs to see Walter [White], largely because of certain kinds of impact, I think, that the Association seemingly was having.”

Thinking Way Kind Certain White Streets Particular England Impact Flight Ministers Prime Association Impressed Prime Minister Fifth Avenues Stairs Visitors Naacp Fifth Avenue Walter White

Author:Ella Baker

“I came first to America in 1977 at the invitation of a man who wanted to make my life story into a musical. But my agent said it was not to be and it was never done. So I went back, but I'd seen New York, and I wanted to live there. Because everybody talks to you in the street. See, nobody talks to you in England.”

Men Firsts Said Done Stories Wanted America Streets New York England Musical Agents Invitations Life Story

Author:Quentin Crisp

“I remember when I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I thought Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the greatest writers, because I felt I knew Sherlock Holmes. He existed to me. When I went to England the first thing I did was go to Baker Street to look for his house. I think you've got to try to make all of your characters as empathetic and realistic as possible.”

Thinking Trying Firsts Looks Character Kids Remember House Felt Streets England Realistic Remember When Holmes Arthur Bakers Empathetic Conan Baker Street

Author:Stan Lee

“Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics - in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad.”

People Should Littles Doe Play Wonder Novel Streets Lonely Madness England Mad Rate Wander Shore Magician Barren Moors

Book:Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

“A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.”

Cities Streets Cold Summer England Hung Grey Fog

Book:The Light That Failed

Source: The Light That Failed

“Do you ever think of moving back?" "To Coldwater? Heck, no. England suits me fine. These Brits love my accent. The first time Gavin asked me out it was just to hear me talk. Lucky for him, it's one of the things I do best." All teasing left her eyes. "Too many memories back home. Can't drive down the street without thinking I see Scott in the crowd.”

Thinking Firsts Home Eye Moving Left Memories Streets Fine Lucky First Time England Crowds Suits Accents Her Eyes Back Home Tease Brits Moving Back

Author:Becca Fitzpatrick

“I love Dylan. I only met him once, about three years ago, back at the Kettle of Fish on MacDougal Street. That was before I went to England. I think both of us were pretty drunk at the time, so he probably doesn’t remember it.”

Thinking Years Remember Three Streets Mets Years Ago England Fishes Drunk Three Years Dylan Kettles

Author:Jimi Hendrix

“I finished my studies in England, I opened my studio in London, and the first one-man exhibit I had on Bond Street, which was opened by the Austrian ambassador.”

Men Firsts Study Streets England Studios Finished London One Man Exhibits Ambassadors

Author:Felix de Weldon