British Train Sayings

#1. Last time I went Intercity there were a couple across the aisle having sex. Of course, this being a British train, nobody said anything. Then they finished, they both lit up a cigarette and this woman stood up and said, Excuse me, I think you'll find this is a non-smoking compartment.

Victoria Wood

#2. The "gravity train" was devised in the seventeenth century by British scientist Robert Hooke, who presented the idea in a letter to Isaac Newton. The idea has been seriously presented a few times, such as to the Paris Academy of Sciences in the nineteenth century.

Stephen Baxter

#3. Every sitcom needs their straight man or straight woman.

Aarti Mann

#4. My maxim is that no one's ever made it. I haven't and that's why I work my hardest.

Shayne Ward

#5. 'Sir' Richard Branson may be the Julian Assange of British business, in that both believe the world revolves around them. Hence Branson's decision to set up an air service between Manchester and London, above the route of the train line that's been taken from him.

Simon Hoggart

#6. Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from a long coma. Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch.

Bill Bryson

#7. In which local hero Colonel Arthur Pettigrew, of the British army in India, held off a train full of murderous thugs to rescue a local Maharajah's youngest wife. For his heroism, the Colonel was awarded a British Order of Merit and personally presented with a pair

Helen Simonson

#8. Don't get to the end of your life and realize you have never lived.

Henry David Thoreau

#9. People ask the difference between a leader and a boss ... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Theodore Roosevelt

#10. It is time to train British workers for the British jobs that will be available over the coming few years and to make sure that people who are inactive and unemployed are able to get the new jobs on offer in our country.

Gordon Brown

#11. The world's an Inn; and I her guest.

Francis Quarles

#12. It's no longer necessary to slave over the vocals. I don't sing the lyrics until I write them, and singing is the very last thing I do. I record the entire track, and then I worry about lyrics and vocals. The music will suggest where the words are going to a certain extent.

Todd Rundgren