Quotes About British

I'd like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. I'm still ambivalent, I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system.

Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing.

In 1938, I was given a one-year teaching appointment, which was sensational for British universities. This was converted into the usual four-year contract for an Assistant Lecturer in 1939.

I think British men build up the idea of us French girls having some magic extra sex appeal so much, they lose their heads. I can't really understand the whole thing - but it makes me laugh. It's such a cliche to think all French girls are well dressed, elegant, sophisticated and sexy. Some are utter slobs, I promise you that.

We think of the revolution ending in Yorktown, Va. The fact of the matter is that the French defeated the British in a naval battle right in the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Because the British fleet was coming to rescue Cornwallis, the British general, Washington was able to surround Cornwallis.

I grew up in a bit of a vacuum. And as a kid, you see 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and you're like, 'Oh, it's a cartoon.' There's mixed media. It's funny, and there's stop-motion. But as an adult, you figure it out, how the entire underpinnings of their comedy was poking fun at the rank and file of the British aristocracy and the monarchy.

I have never, ever sought validation from the arbiters of British poetic taste.

It was by a Maryland colonel in the year 1777 that the British received, in the gallant defense of an important fort, one of the first lessons of what they were to expect from American valor and patriotism.

I considered our British comrades to rank with the finest men and women of any armed service in the world. And I know that my fellow American soldiers - and those of the other coalition countries under my command - valued very highly the professional expertise, capability, courage, and determination of our British partners on the battlefield.

It is important that those that do come to settle in the U.K. gain a sense of British identity and share British values. We have always attracted the best and brightest.

The poor performance of the huge Soviet army against the tiny Finnish army had been a big embarrassment to the Soviet Union: about eight Soviet soldiers killed for every Finn killed. The longer a war with Finland went on, the higher was the risk of British and French intervention, which would drag the Soviet Union into war with those countries and invite a British/French attack on Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus.

So this is where the CIA began—with J. Edgar Hoover telling the British to go to hell, and the British not appreciating it.

It was one of those British phrases, along with 'May I help you?', that can be either exceedingly polite or hugely aggressive.

I am a caricature of what British science is about in the way I work.

What I'm doing is British. It stems from the same culture as U.S. hip-hop, but the way we dress, the way we speak, the way we perform is so different. It's U.K. street culture.

British men are peacocks. You see a lot more style on the streets here than you see anywhere else, on every level.

The British people in the north are very friendly and treat me well on the streets. They have great respect and don't bother me.

I wrote 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' at the age of 30 under intense, unshared personal stress and in extreme privacy. As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself.

It is a British legacy that we have such a strict hierarchy that we can't even write a letter to our PM.

I am huge fan of Australian comedy. 'Strictly Ballroom' is one of my favorite movies. Definitely the British Commonwealth's sensibility is where I draw a lot of my influences.

The setting of 'Billy Elliot' is the British miners' strike of 1984-85, about which the average American playgoer knows absolutely nothing.

What's been largely forgotten is that Washington was highly passionate and aggressive, and it was only after losing Philadelphia to the British after a string of disastrous battlefield performances that he finally resigned himself to the more conservative approach with which he has since become associated.

I challenge British Muslims to accept that as strongly as they feel about Iraq or counter-terrorism measures, poverty and inequality have the biggest impact on the lives of the majority of British Muslims and do the most to prevent potential being fulfilled.

In terms of what influenced me, I grew up on The Beatles, and I always was struck by their dry British sense of humor.