Classic British Sayings

#1. After my grandfather's plane took enemy fire, he was denied permission to land at the first available airstrip. In that classic British bureaucratic way, they said he had to go back to your own airbase in the Midlands. They crashed between the coast and the airfield.

Tom Hooper

#2. [I like to cook] Shepherd's pie, which is a classic British dish. But my version reflects my Jamaican roots, because I add jerk to it as well.

Naomie Harris

#3. Own company, reading a classic British novel, curled

E.L. James

#4. To be honest, I would like to have worked with Peter Sellers, because when people talk about classic British actors, you talk about Lawrence Olivier, and Peter Sellers was just in the most amazing films.

Daniel Radcliffe

#5. I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.

Per Petterson

#6. I'm dead?"
"That body is... yes.

Donna Augustine

#7. Please don't complicate the investigation by offering an explanation that might actually be true.
--Marjorie Branell-Markson

Jennifer A. Girardin

#8. The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.

Jose Bergamin

#9. No company can be expected to build a nuclear reactor, an oil well, a coal mine, or anything else that's one hundred percent safe under all circumstances. The costs would be prohibitive. It's unreasonable to expect corporations to totally guard against small chances of every potential accident.

Robert Reich

#10. When I run out of the things I love, I move on to the things I don't hate too much, and sometimes I even discover that I can love the things I think I hate.

Ruth Ozeki

#11. The heritage of a British actor revolves around the challenges of playing the classic roles to meet certain levels of success as an actor. In America, the heritage of an actor is based on cinema mainly.

Brian Cox

#12. Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.

Robert Louis Stevenson

#13. British women can't cook.

Prince Philip

#14. Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: England.
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

Tom Stoppard

#15. Too much research can be the writer's enemy. You can spend days on end in the British Library or prowling the streets with a Dictaphone, and it's easy to convince yourself that you're working hard. Often, it can be an excuse not to work; a classic displacement activity.

Mark Billingham

#16. There are tons of examples of U.K. and European mistakes. A classic one is pensions. That's obviously not an America-specific thing. The British and European economies are suffering under the weight of what is to come. The next great Ponzi scheme after Madoff is probably pensions.

Dambisa Moyo

#17. The British invented the classic look. Men's apparel was created in London, the great English style. You have to respect this country's suits, shirts, shoes, luggage.

Mickey Drexler

#18. People are concrescences of ambiguity.

Terence McKenna

#19. I mean ... who was it that said if the door is locked, find a window. If the windows locked, well ... break it. If it won't break then find a freaking sledgehammer and make a new one.

C.C. Hunter

#20. I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism.

Jeb Bush

#21. Audiences love both the feeling part (reliving the life) and the thinking part (figuring out the puzzle) of a story. Every good story has both.

John Truby

#22. Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us. Pray that the Lord's message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes. - 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Gary Chapman

#23. Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother.

Augustine Of Hippo

#24. He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
[On British Labour politician Stafford Cripps.]

Winston S. Churchill