English quotes

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◆ Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

- Henry James100

◆ Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

- Aravind Adiga99

◆ She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else

- Jonathan Safran Foer99

◆ They had nothing in common but the English language.

- E.M. Forster99

◆ 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. Nichols99

◆ Trevor realized that the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences word up up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way. French? Dieu! Misplace a single le or la and an idea vaporizes into a sonic puff. English is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still emerge.

- Douglas Coupland99

◆ We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.

- Upamanyu Chatterjee99

◆ Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

- Horace Walpole99

◆ In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage.

- Ian McEwan99

◆ Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child - Some think me middling, others silly, other foolish - every one thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in thruth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so graet a resource. This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and eclipese from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good Poet - I hope I am not here playing tricks 'to make the angels weep': I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my species; and though it may sound paradoxical: my greatest elevations of Soul leave me every time more humbled - Enough of this - though in your Love for me you will not think it enough.

- John Keats99

◆ Psychobabble attempts to redefine the entire English language just to make a correct statement incorrect. Psychology is the study of why someone would try to do this.

- Criss Jami99

◆ lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays…

- Stephen Fry99

◆ Man is a bad animal....

- Brion Gysin99

◆ We were supposed to be an English literature class, but Miss Nesbitt used literature to teach real life. She said she didn't have time to teach us like a regular English teacher--we were too far behind. Instead, she taught us the world through literature.

- Phillip M. Hoose99

◆ Bicky rocked, like a jelly in a high wind.

- P.G. Wodehouse99