GK > GK's Quotes

“A truly English protest march would see us all chanting: 'What do we want? GRADUAL CHANGE! When do we want it? IN DUE COURSE!”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“Social scientists are not universally liked or appreciated, but we are still marginally more acceptable than alcoholics and escaped lunatics.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English : The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“Tea is still believed, by English people of all classes, to have miraculous properties. A cup of tea can cure, or at least significantly alleviate, almost all minor physical ailments and indispositions, from a headache to a scraped knee. Tea is also an essential remedy for all social and psychological ills, from a bruised ego to the trauma of a divorce or bereavement. This magical drink can be used equally effectively as a sedative or stimulant, to calm and soothe or to revive and invigorate. Whatever your mental or physical state, what you need is ‘a nice cup of tea’.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“The understatement rule means that a debilitating and painful chronic illness must be described as ‘a bit of a nuisance’; a truly horrific experience is ‘well, not exactly what I would have chosen’; a sight of breathtaking beauty is ‘quite pretty’; an outstanding performance or achievement is ‘not bad’; an act of abominable cruelty is ‘not very friendly’, and an unforgivably stupid misjudgement is ‘not very clever’; the Antarctic is ‘rather cold’ and the Sahara ‘a bit too hot for my taste’; and any exceptionally delightful object, person or event, which in other cultures would warrant streams of superlatives, is pretty much covered by ‘nice’, or, if we wish to express more ardent approval, ‘very nice’.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“During the London riots in August 2011, I witnessed looters forming an orderly queue to squeeze, one at a time, through the smashed window of a shop they were looting. They even did the ‘paranoid pantomime’, deterring potential queue-jumpers with disapproving frowns, pointed coughs and raised eyebrows. And it worked. Nobody jumped the queue. Even amid rioting and mayhem – and while committing a blatant crime – the unwritten laws of queuing can be ‘enforced’ by a raised eyebrow.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“when the English say ‘Oh really? How interesting!’ they might well mean ‘I don’t believe a word of it, you lying toad’. Or they might not. They might just mean ‘I’m bored and not really listening but trying to be polite’. Or they might be genuinely surprised and truly interested. You’ll never know.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“the myth is still widely believed, particularly among males, that men spend their conversations ‘solving the world’s problems’, while the womenfolk gossip in the kitchen. In my discussion groups and interviews, most English males initially claimed that they did not gossip, while most of the females readily admitted that they did. On further questioning, however, the difference turned out to be more a matter of semantics than practice: what the women were happy to call ‘gossip’, the men defined as ‘exchanging information’.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English

“Moderation is all very well, but only in moderation.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

“This comment seemed to reflect an assumption that a stereotype is almost by definition ‘not true’, that the truth lies somewhere else – wherever ‘beyond’ might be. I find this rather strange, as I would naturally assume that, although they are unlikely to be ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but’, stereotypes about English national character might possibly contain at least a grain or two of truth. They do not, after all, just come out of thin air, but must have germinated and grown from something.”
― Kate Fox, Watching the English

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
― Laurence J. Peter

“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
― Mark Twain

“That does it," said Jace. "I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?" Isabelle said.
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Investigation?" Isabelle laughed. "Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names."
"Good idea," said Jace. "I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
― Mark Twain

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”
― George Carlin

“Why were you lurking under our window?"
"Yes - yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our windows, boy?"
"Listening to the news," said Harry in a resigned voice.
His aunt and uncle exchanged looks of outrage.
"Listening to the news! Again?"
"Well, it changes every day, you see," said Harry.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
― George Carlin

“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”
― Charles Lamb

“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.”
― Pat Monahan

“Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.”
― Robert Benchley

“If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Hey, Rosalie? Do you know how to drown a blonde? Stick a mirror to the bottom of a pool.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
― Mark Twain

“I don't mean to be rude—" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.
"Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often," Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”
― A.A. Milne

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
― Mark Twain