Best British Lit Quotes & Sayings

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

At this point I feel I would be remiss to not mention the prevalence of a specific kind of person who enters the field of book publishing. This is the English lit major who never should have left academia, a genius who has read all of V.S. Naipaul but can't photocopy title pages right side up. This person is very thin, possibly vegan, probably Ivy League. He or she feels as if answering the phone in a chipper voice is a form of legalized prostitution. He or she has a single quirky fashion piece, usually red or black, and waxes poetic about typewriters and the British, having never truly known either. Regardless of sex, they all want to be David Foster Wallace when they grow up. — Sloane Crosley

I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'. — Deborah Smith

The best way [to survive] the red carpet is by wearing Ugg boots. But unfortunately, I have not yet managed to persuade the people who style me at these times to let me do that. — Emma Thompson

Few are aware that they want any thing, except pounds schillings and pence. — Augustus William Hare

Bad luck is usually transmitted by close proximity to habitual sufferers. — Irvine Welsh

Gower is the first English writer to use "history" as an English word. He regularly rhymes the term with "memory," for to his way of thinking history and memory are correlative. That is, without history, there can be no memory; and without memory, there can be no history. But the point of historical knowledge is not to enable people to live in the past, or even to understand the past in the way we would expect a modern historian to proceed; rather, it is to enable people to live more vitally in the present. — Russell A. Peck

The art of chess is in knowing which is the most valuable piece in play, then having the courage to sacrifice it for the win. — Thomm Quackenbush

[Rousseau] has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and as he scorns to dissemble his contempt of established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. — David Hume

I do find that if I go out for a meal I can be listening to a few conversations at once all around me. It can drive my partner bonkers a little bit. But it's about being able to tell a lot of very different stories as well as you can and I do genuinely love what I do. — Christine Bottomley

You may scold your carpenter, when he has made a bad table, though you can't make a table yourself.' I say to you - 'Mr. Finch, you may point out a defect in a baby's petticoats, though you haven't got a baby yourself!' Doesn't that satisfy you? All right! Take another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling of an eye, that it's badly lit. You have only got one window - you ought to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that? Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not a Chancellor of the Exchequer - but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at its last gasp? — Wilkie Collins

I have a lot of beautiful friends. — Richard Gere

Kingdom involves a king and his influence over a domain — Sunday Adelaja

In all worthy music, in fact, the chief point of interest is the music itself which speaks to us in its own language of sound and rhythm. A knowledge of form is but a means to an end: for the composer, that he may express himself clearly and convincingly, and for the listener, that he may readily receive the message set forth. — Walter Raymond Spalding

My mouth went dry as I tried to remember all of Poppie's tips for kissing over the years. She told me no guy wanted a girl with a mouth as wide as a guppy, who sucked his tongue with the force of a Dyson vacuum cleaner first time, or licked him to death like an overeager puppy. She'd told me to just purse my lips and let him lead and take control. Don't slobber, don't slobber, don't slobber, I chanted to myself as he got closer and closer — Charlotte Fallowfield

It was interesting to have humanoid villains that were rooted in our three-dimensional reality ... or four dimensional reality, I'm not sure which! — Amber Benson

I don't know anything about music. — Captain Beefheart

Some people just don't find their Prince Charming straight away, they have to search for him. — Charlotte Fallowfield