Cockney Quotes & Sayings

We knew that they, in their own time, had feared school, just as we did now, feared the arbitrary rules and felt shamed by them, by the new uniforms they couldn't afford, the baffling obsession with quiet, the incessant correcting of their original patois or cockney, the sense that they could never do anything right anyway. A — Zadie Smith

And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man goes on concerned with this tree or that temple, with this harvest or that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched. And it watches from its splendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-car civilization going its triumphant way, outstripping time, consuming space, seeing all and seeing nothing, roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system, only to find the sun cockney and the stars suburban. — G.K. Chesterton

You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are. — Alan Arkin

So how would you define a Londoner, then?" Lady Penny asked curiously. "Someone who lives here. It's like the old definition of a cockney: someone who's born within hearing distance of Bow bells. And a foreigner," he added with a grin, "is anyone, Anglo-Saxon or not, who lives outside. — Edward Rutherfurd

It's a damn shame we have this immediate ticking off in the mind about how people sound. On the other hand, how many people really want to be operated upon by a surgeon who talks broad cockney? — Eileen Atkins

Life ain't all you want but it's all you got. Stick a flower in your hat and be 'appy. — Anonymous

I could be a dray man delivering the beer, maybe. If they could wangle some cockney in, that would be great. — Pauline Quirke

Cockney girl who was already beneath his tastes. He quit — Sidney Sheldon

A pair of workman's brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the shadow for the substance. — Jack London

I've been acting a long time, and I can play a Cockney gangster or a womanizer in my sleep or standing on my head. But what I try to do is I try to find characters that are as far away from me as I possibly can and then make them real. A French Nazi is about as far away from me as I can possibly get without actually going to Mars or something. — Michael Caine

I just wanted to be an ordinary, middle-class person. When I was at Cambridge, I made great efforts to lose the last remnants of my Cockney accent. — Peter Ackroyd

The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look, what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one, like ours, filled with men in ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit, as the sea is rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow. — Michael Caine

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate. — China Mieville

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. — John Ruskin

It was great to play an ex-marine cockney thug. All my roles are as different as the colours of the rainbow. — Luke Treadaway

In England, I was a Cockney actor. In America, I was an actor. — Michael Caine

I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, "The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe." He will say, "The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume." He will say in the most exquisite French, "How are you?" I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, "Oh, just the Syme."'
'Oh shut it ... what are you really going to do?'
'But it was a lovely catechism! ... Do let me read it to you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy.'
'But what's the good of it all?' asked Dr. Bull in exasperation.
'It leads up to the challenge ... when the Marquis as given the forty-ninth reply, which runs
'
'Has it ... occurred to you ... that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three things you have put down for him?'
'How true that is! ... Sir, you have a intellect beyond the common. — G.K. Chesterton

The Girl Guides kept up their activities as well, giving Elizabeth an unexpectedly democratic experience when refugees from London's bomb-ravaged East End were taken in by families on the Windsor estate and joined the troop. The girls earned their cooking badges, with instruction from a castle housekeeper, by baking cakes and scones (a talent Elizabeth would later display for a U.S. president) and making stew and soup. With their Cockney accents and rough ways, the refugees gave the future Queen no deference, calling her Lilibet, the nickname even daughters of aristocrats were forbidden to use, and compelling her to wash dishes in an oily tub of water — Sally Bedell Smith

People say I've 'retained' my Cockney accent. I can do any accent, but I wanted other working-class boys to know that they could become actors. — Michael Caine

Millions who could not follow closely or accurately the main events of the War looked day after day in the papers for the fortunes of Mafeking, and when finally the news of its relief was flashed throughout the world, the streets of London became impassable, and the floods of sterling, cockney patriotism were released in such a deluge of unbridled, delirious joy as was never witnessed again till Armistace Night, 1918 ... — Winston Churchill

Adele's like a beacon of honesty. Doesn't compromise, goes to America and she's still the same sweary cockney. — Paloma Faith

I don't like John Terry and I never have. He's got funny eyes and he's a cry baby. He's also a Cockney. — Noel Gallagher

I have always been English, ever since I emigrated from England and since the kids in Canada beat me up at the age of twelve for having an East London Cockney accent. I thank them for the cockney taunts because the beatings turned me on to boxing. But on a serious note Canada has been kind to me. — Lennox Lewis

There are lots of actors who are posh and stick with that, and there are lots of actors who are cockney, and that's what they do. That's fine, but I don't think that could be said about me. — Keeley Hawes

Ever since I saw sexy Beast I've been trying to get the cockney thing down. — Chris Pine

The sexy magazine in Britain in that time was called Club International. Club International: It was about as international as the International House of Pancakes. It should have been called Naked Cockney Girls with Scurvy. — Craig Ferguson

We had probably our best ever Player of the Year Dance last week. You elected Dennis Wise as Player of the Year. Dennis accepted his award mimicking Vialli, whereupon Zola shouted 'Speak English', Dennis switched to his normal Cockney voice only for Zola to shout 'You're still not speaking English'. — Ken Bates

We must grow out of religion. It is either bugaboo, formalism, or hysteria. Besides, what proof is there that "the churches" know more about "God" than the Cockney sentry on duty outside the camp? We have only their say-so. — Richard Aldington

Derek.' There was an odd smile on her face. 'Your cockney is showing. — Lisa Kleypas

Poetry's the speech of kings. You're one of those
Shakespeare gives the comic bits to: prose!
All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you see
's been dubbed by [Us] into RP,
Received Pronunciation, please believe [Us]
your speech is in the hands of the Receivers. — Tony Harrison

Wiv difficulty 'an injinuity. Jest bein' smart, like. — Jennifer Worth

Derek cuddled his daughter against his shoulder and spoke in a mixture of baby words and cockney, a language only she seemed to understand. — Lisa Kleypas

Writing books about whores ... I'll bet you newer ... joined giblets wiv a man in your lily-white life.'
Dr. Hindley and Worthy began to reprove him, but Sara smiled quizzically. ' "Joined giblets?" ... I've never heard it put that way before. — Lisa Kleypas

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars. — Michael Caine

The Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, the most indecent in the language, which he uses on any and every occasion. Far different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs to blasphemy rather than indecency. And after all, since men will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is an audacity about it, an adventurousness and defiance that is better than sheer filthiness. — Jack London

Lots of middle class people are running around pretending to be Cockney. — Christopher Eccleston

The Cockney accent was almost impenetrable. *Nothing* was "nuffin," and aitches were dropped from and attached to the wrong words, and some of the vowels seemed to have arrived from another planet. — Loretta Chase

I grew up with Jilly and Tamsin driving Volvos. But I wasn't one of them ... I always felt more comfortable with Cockney and working-class people. My heroes were the Beatles and people like Michael Caine. — Tracey Ullman

I'd lose that smile if I were you." I jingle the car keys in his face. "Your life is in my hands, lest you forget " My imitation of his cockney accent is actually spot-on, I let myself bask in it, — A.G. Howard

I wonder if it would be unethical for me to turn James Marsters? And then force him to fake the Cockney accent? And then make him my love monkey? — Molly Harper

OUr teachers at LT&C had their A levels and the odd teaching certificate. It is astonishing how a black crepe robe worn over a coat or blouse gives a Cockney punter or a Covent Garden flower girl the gravitas of an Oxford don. Accent be damned in Africa, as long as it's foreign and you have the right skin colour. — Abraham Verghese

I love my accent, I thought it was useful in Gone In 60 Seconds because the standard villain is upper class or Cockney. My Northern accent would be an odd clash opposite Nic Cage. — Christopher Eccleston

The Crafty Cockney had a picture of the owner dressed up as a copper, so I brought it home, wore it on TV and the name just stuck. — Eric Bristow

I don't want to say I'll never play someone with a cockney accent, but I think I would be irritated by me doing it. — Daniel Radcliffe

I actually had a cockney accent before I went to drama school. It's softened up a bit. — Gemma Arterton

My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached "China," thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that "china" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate." People say "my old china," meaning "my old mate," because "china plate" rhymes with "mate. — China Mieville