Quotation Explorer - 'English'

And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. (How to Write with Style. Essay, 1985) - Kurt Vonnegut
An English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was, ‘What’s your alma mater?’ I told him, ‘Books. - Malcolm X
Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym. - Stephen King
It may be that The Great Gatsby is as perfect, word for word, just in terms of English; but Ulysses is deeper, richer, wider and is comic, whereas The Great Gatsby is a tragic novel. And I think all great art is comic art.() Stephen Fry - video
ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. - Ambrose Bierce
My father and he had one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether. - Jorge Luis Borges
...seeing the way his trousers clung to those most English parts. - Seth Grahame-Smith
Despite centuries of English literature, the most famous split infinitive in all of history comes from Star Trek. - R. Curtis Venture
When animals do something noble we say they are behaving ‘like humans’. When humans do something disgusting we say they are behaving ‘like animals’. Clumsy use of the English language perpetuates the myth that animals are inferior and disposable beings. - Phillip Wollen
Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery. - Joe Haldeman
In the Belgian backwaters, south of Bruges, there lives a reclusive English composer, named Vyvyan Ayrs. You won’t have heard of him because you’re a musical oaf, but he’s one of the greats. - David Mitchell
English is only a weak second language, so that the third language--which at the moment is getting the most play, since French is what I speak, read, and hear almost 24/7--is trying to take over the no. 2 spot. - Apol Lejano-Massebieau
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
The English think incompetence is the same thing as sincerity. - Quentin Crisp
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers. - W. Somerset Maugham
In English, we don't have a word for people who aren't virgins. What the non-virgin lexical gap really made me think was that our obsession with sexual purity is such that once you are no longer this THING, you are indescribable.
It is no accident that the words discipline and disciple resemble each other in the English language. The most common word in the Gospels for a Christian is disciple. - Billy Graham
It's okay to be proud of your good English. But don't be proud of being poor at your Mother tongue. Only the scum of the earth do that. - Manasa Rao Saarloos
(1) Use mathematics as shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to them till you have done. (3) Translate into English. (4) Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life (5) Burn the mathematics. (6) If you can’t succeed in 4, burn 3. This I do often. - Alfred Marshall
English is the easiest language to speak badly.
The English novels are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. But one should not be too severe on them. They show a want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study. - Oscar Wilde
The English language is a work in progress. Have fun with it. - Jonathan Culver
I beg your pardon; I am drunk without a drink. English wine & words are vulnerable to every man. - Santosh Kalwar
Well, the man who first translated the bible into English was burned at the stake, and they've been at it ever since. Must be all that adultery, murder and incest. But not to worry. It's back on the shelves. - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The English word 'creativity' is derived from the Roman-Latin creo - to create. It is inextricably linked to the Western notion of a creator - a divine intervention and violent disrupter. - Thorsten J. Pattberg
When I try to write in English, I feel like a bird without wings still trying to fly. - Debasish Mridha
The two most beautiful words in the English language are ``check enclosed.'' - Dorothy Parker
The fact that Iam writing to youin Englishalready falsifies what Iwanted to tell you.My subject:how to explain to youthat I don't belong to Englishthough I belong nowhere else,if not herein English. - Gustavo Perez Firmat
Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca. - W.S. Merwin
The dominating idea of English society was not cultivate virtue but to avoid scandal. - Edward Short
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur. - Doug Larson
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins commited in previous lives. - James Joyce
Gods do have their divisions thanks to man. Jesus Christ is the Christian God, Allah the Muslim and so on. As a convent student, I thought God was English till the Sanskrit mantras became somewhat comprehensible. - Andy Paula
We thought speaking in English meant you were more intelligent. We were wrong of course. It does not matter what language you choose, the important thing is the words you use to express yourself. - Malala Yousafzai
The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination. - J. R. R. Tolkien
Facetiously is the only English word that has all six vowels in order, James Thurber declared. "Oh," replied copy editor Miss Gould, "What about abstemiously?"
Those who say Rules are meant to be broken. are saying this by following rules of English language. - Aishwarya Shiva Pareek
Many people just think they understand English, remember. - Emma Wagner
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? - Clarence Darrow
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. - Carl Sagan
[These]were the legitimate acts of self-defense which had been forced upon the Irish people by English aggression... We did not initiate the war, nor were we allowed to choose the battleground. - Michael Collins
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine. - Peter Ustinov
I don't have an English accent because this is what English sounds like when spoken properly. - James Carr
Miss Austen’s novels seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer is marriageableness. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. - George Bernard Shaw
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? - George Carlin
For a moment David was tempted to think that perhaps there were no good people at all outside concentration camps, but then he reminded himself of the sailor and Angelo and the English people who might have been ignorant but were certainly not bad. - Anne Holm
Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour. - Mike Myers
Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. - Elise Boulding
My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets —no, they're little gifts, containing meanings! - Philip Roth
BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues. - Ambrose Bierce
English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England.
Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. - H. L. Mencken
He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle to steady his fellow countrymen and hearten those Europeans upon whom the long dark night of tyranny had descended. - Edward R. Murrow
I wrote relationship spelling as "realationship" when I was in 5th class. But English teacher smiled and gave me marks. - Rakesh Vemulawada
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. - Oscar Wilde
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. - James D. Nicoll
[H]is mouth pursed, but pursed in American, more generous than English pursing, ready for broader vowels and less mincing sounds. His body was long and lean and trim; he had American hips, ready for a neat belt and the faraway ghost of a gunbelt. - A.S. Byatt
Alone.Yes,that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym. - Stephen King
We're in America; why do I have to "Press 1" for English? - Allan Hall
...I am not, however, militant in my atheism. The great English theoretical physicist is a militant atheist. I suppose he is interested in arguing about the existence of God. I am not. It was once quipped that there is no God and Dirac is his prophet. Linus Pauling - Paul Dirac
I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick? - James A. Michener
So, Slade, the swearing, the poor english and everything else is just a facade. You're really quite a deep and intelligent man, aren't you? - Dianne Harman Coyote in Provence
Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things with it. - Chinua Achebe.
English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it's good enough for the children of Texas.
The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary. - Dave Kellett
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. - Oscar Wilde
All last year we tried to teach him English, and the only word he learned was million.
English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though. - Anonymous.
Memories help make us who we are.(Taken from novel...A Very English Affair) - Faith Mortimer
I’m seeing so much of America today, Luya kept telling Lowell in nervously accented English. It became a personal catchphrase for him whenever things were not to his liking, he’d say that I’m seeing so much of America today. - Karen Joy Fowler
...there are no sweeter words in the English language (or any other) than husband and wife. - Lanier Ivester
It was curious what trying to speak English had done lately to his mind; it reminded him of studying poetry in college, words gaining and losing their meaning, overlapping with images, the curious echo of ideas behind the words people used. - Jess Walter
(I) only write it now because I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful English. ("The Adoration of The Magi") - W.B. Yeats
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,Student of our sweet English tongue,Read out my words at night, alone:I was a poet, I was young.Since I can never see your face,And never shake you by the hand,I send my soul through time and spaceTo greet you. You will understand. - James Elroy Flecker
The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott notes that one of the signs of being cold today is that one knows what one doesn't have to know. - Joseph Epstein
English is so hierarchical. In Cree, we don't have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls, trees have souls. Trees are 'who,' not 'what. - Tomson Highway
Irish and English are so widely separated in their mode of expression that nothing like a literal rendering from one language to the other is possible. - Robin Flower
When you have lived your life under such dominant image-leadership, its pressures put a certain invisible English on the cue ball of your development: It influences all of your ideas about who you should be, all the ways in which you become yourself. - Cintra Wilson
Enlarged sympathy with children was one of the chief contributions made by the Victorian English to real civilization. - George Macaulay Trevelyan
When it comes to correct English, there's no one in charge; the lunatics are running the asylum. - Steven Pinker
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' - Ronald Reagan
The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed. - Dorothy Parker
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. - Theodore Roosevelt
Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. - Brené Brown
English words are like prisms. Empty, nothing inside, and still they make rainbows. - Denis Johnson
"Reality" is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes. - Unknown
I won't lie!Probably from books you have saw that I'm not good at English, probably because I don't live in such country which this language is important or let's say to be native. But as for now I can't do a lot of for that! - Deyth Banger
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why. - James Joyce
I most likely like books which are out of my language... English... for example is a great example - Not my native language, but I enjoy the covers and how the words sound. - Deyth Banger
Propose to any englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the english mind is directed to find a difficulty, defect or an impossibility in it.
You can learn English online - Brian Daniel
Education has all the vowels in English. Unquestionably, it is not the only word. - Prabakaran Thirumalai
But to understand English is one thing; to understand an Englishman who talks is another. - Aleister Crowley
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman. - Ambrose Bierce
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English. - William Shakespeare
Then, as now, I believe that the English use language to hide what they mean. - Zia Haider Rahman
CALIFORNIA: From Latin 'calor', meaning "heat" (as in English 'calorie' or Spanish 'caliente'); and 'fornia', for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."
The English language is simply not logical. It is strong, free, and beautiful. - Edward Nelson Teall
There is a story I always tell my students...when I came for the 1st time to the US. I didn’t speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word exit which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they open leads to success - Pablo
Yeah, I know what your English Professor tried to tell you. But if your English Professor could make a living writing fiction, they would have been doing it. - Dean Wesley Smith
BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind. - Ambrose Bierce
Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less. - Robert E. Lee
Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. I think media are at their most interesting before anybody's thought of calling them art, when people still think they're just a load of junk. - Douglas Adams
I am going to knock the slut out of you. And that should take some doing, you uppity English tramp! - Jeaniene Frost
What I really want is to be recognized as a writer; that someday, my poetry this is an interesting paradox would be taught in English classes; for my name, along with my poetry, to exist 500 years from now. - Harley King
Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall. - Joseph Conrad
The four most expensive word in the English language are 'This time it's different. - John Templeton
There is no other word in the English language more life-changing than Hello - Patrick Stevens @pastna IG
Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing. - Robert Benchley
The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it.
"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? - George Carlin
Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. - Henry James
If I wouldn't of spent so much time shooting spit wads at my English teacher I'd know how to punctuate good thing I normally write poetry. - Stanley Victor Paskavich
Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them. - Robert Graves
Contrary to popular belief, English women do not wear tweed nightgowns.
But after all we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents, not English public school boys who after a night of homosexual romps have to endure the paradox of reading the Ancients in expurgated versions. - Vladimir Nabokov
About GreenHollyWood who is this character?? My English teacher a fat guy about 30 or 35 years old with Glasses and short Hair. - Deyth Banger
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