Quotes & Sayings About English Subject

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 Fry

The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don't belong to English
though I belong nowhere else — Gustavo Perez Firmat

Neely grumbled. 'They [Indians] are a murdering lot of savages, and no mention of them in the Bible.'
'What has that to do with it?' John Sampson asked.
'If there's no mention of them,' Neely said, 'they are animals, not men.'
'I don't recall any mention of the English, either,' I said mildly.
He gave me a mean look, then changed the subject. — Louis L'Amour

This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. — Wilfred Owen

American Heritage Dictionary: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. . . . In general, the Usage Panel accepts the split infinitive." Merriam-Webster Unabridged online dictionary: "Even though there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive, the subject has become a fixture of folk belief about grammar. . . . Modern commentators . . . usually say it's all right to split an infinitive in the interest of clarity. Since clarity is the usual reason for splitting, this advice means merely that you can split them whenever you need to." Encarta World English Dictionary: "There is no grammatical basis for rejecting split infinitives. — Steven Pinker

I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. English was always my favorite subject at school, so why I went on to do a degree in French is anyone's guess. — J.K. Rowling

In an ideal world, the perfect biographical subject would have been the star of his penmanship class at grade school - and would thereafter write an English that positively sings. — Stacy Schiff

I have these guilts about never having read Chaucer but I was talked out of learning Early Anglo-Saxon / Middle English by a friend who had to take it for her Ph.D. They told her to write an essay in Early Anglo-Saxon on any-subject-of-her-own-choosing. "Which is all very well," she said bitterly, "but the only essay subject you can find enough Early Anglo-Saxon words for is 'How to Slaughter a Thousand Men in a Mead Hall'. — Helene Hanff

My children were educated in what were then Chinese schools, and they learned English as a subject. But they made up when they went to English-language universities. So they didn't lose out. They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values. Not my grandchildren. — Lee Kuan Yew

At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It's extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers. — Salman Rushdie

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their out-reaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. — Herman Melville

As graduation loomed, I had a nagging sense that there was still far too much unresolved for me, that I wasn't done studying. I applied for a master's in English literature at Stanford and was accepted into the program. I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life's meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form. It was the relational aspect of humans - i.e., "human relationality" - that undergirded meaning. Yet somehow, this process existed in brains and bodies, subject to their own physiologic imperatives, prone to breaking and failing. There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced - of passion, of hunger, of love - bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats. At Stanford, I had the good — Paul Kalanithi

Stupid English."
"English isn't stupid," I say.
"Well, my English teacher is." He makes a face. "Mr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he won't let me."
"Why not?"
"He says lunch isn't a subject."
I glance at him. "It isn't."
"Well," Jacob says, "it's not a predicate, either. Shouldn't he know that? — Jodi Picoult

The British are absolutely hung up on class, and whenever they start to really - class for the English is like sex for Americans: They start to shake all over when the subject comes up. — Gore Vidal

Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject's sole prerogative. — John Dryden

I wasn't going to be a college kid. The only subject I was interested in was English. I think I had a subconscious interest in analyzing story. — Eric Bana

I was terrible in English. I couldn't stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention - it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature. — Richard P. Feynman

Communists, socialists and fascists everywhere, from Mr. Obama upward, have taken to the global warming cause like a quack to colored water. Just about every word they utter on this subject is a falsehood calculated to deceive, or in plain English a lie. — Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton Of Brenchley

One of the most painful parts of teaching mathematics is seeing students damaged by the cult of the genius. The genius cult tells students it's not worth doing mathematics unless you're the best at mathematics, because those special few are the only ones whose contributions matter. We don't treat any other subject that way! I've never heard a student say, "I like Hamlet, but I don't really belong in AP English - that kid who sits in the front row knows all the plays, and he started reading Shakespeare when he was nine!" Athletes don't quit their sport just because one of their teammates outshines them. And yet I see promising young mathematicians quit every year, even though they love mathematics, because someone in their range of vision was "ahead" of them. — Jordan Ellenberg

I do not find that I feel myself to be any different as an English subject than as an American. I have not the vote in either place, so I am not a citizen of either, and have no call to be patriotic. In fact, I do not see how women can ever feel like anything but aliens in whatever country they may live, for they have no part or lot in any, except the part and lot of being taxed and legislated for by men. — Hannah Whitall Smith

The language of starlings reminded her of nothing so much as the language of scholarly papers, the smooth and chilly syntax devoid of contour, the maddening reliance on 'the royal we' as the subject. Yet this was not the royal we, not in the sense that a pompous colleague or one of her lazy graduate students might use it: at least twenty birds had together formed the multilayered sound that came to her as English words. — Joe Pitkin

The will of God is revealed as you listen to the Spirit of God in the Word of God. The precepts and promises of the Bible teach us what to pray. They teach us what grace to ask for and for what work we need strength. On every page of the Bible there is subject matter for prayer. B. F. Westcott, a renowned nineteenth-century English Bible scholar, observed: "The petitions of true disciples are echoes (so to speak) of Christ's words. As He has spoken so they speak. Their prayer is only some fragment of His teaching transformed into a supplication, and so it will necessarily be heard."[50] One way to pray more effectively is to echo God's Word back to Him as you pray. We align our hearts with His heart as we pray His Words from our hearts. — Archie Parrish

We all tend to judge others by ourselves; that's human nature. Edward Said, a Palestinian born in Jerusalem and an English professor, was bitterly and viciously anti-British. He assumed that an Englishman who was a professor of Arabic would have the same attitude to his subject as he had to his. [Explaining why he, as a Jewish and British, was accused of barely conceal disdain for subject matter of his scholarship in Edward Said's 'Orientalism'] — Bernard Lewis

If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I had not particularly liked the way in which he wrote about literature in Beginnings, and I was always on my guard if not outright hostile when any tincture of 'deconstruction' or 'postmodernism' was applied to my beloved canon of English writing, but when Edward talked about English literature and quoted from it, he passed the test that I always privately apply: Do you truly love this subject and could you bear to live for one moment if it was obliterated? — Christopher Hitchens

For all we know that English people are/ Fed upon beef - I won't say much of beer/ Because 'tis liquor only, and being far/ From this my subject, has no business here;/ We know too, they are very fond of war,/ A pleasure - like all pleasures - rather dear;/ So were the Cretans - from which I infer/ That beef and battle both were owing her — Lord Byron

One cultivates one's life, one's friends, one's means, one's hopes. One goes from place to place, from triumph to triumph, in search of ambition and ambition's remedy as though in flight across some imagined map, the subject of a conversation in a comfortable English room. — Jesse Ball

What an English King has no right to demand, an English subject has a right to refuse — John Hampden

I had always looked down on sociology as this arriviste discipline. It didn't have the noble history of English and history as a subject. But once I had a little exposure to it, I said, 'Hey, here's the key. Here's the key to understanding life and all its forms.' — Tom Wolfe

I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a freeborn British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more; I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair; but no longer. — Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

Math just wasn't my favorite. I didn't get how important math is and how it relates to real life. That's why I think I was turned off to it. Once I got down arithmetic and a little bit of algebra, I think I checked out. As I've gotten older, I think there's a lot more relation to math. English was my favorite subject. — Adam Rodriguez

My favorite subject in high school was English. I love reading and writing, and I felt really supported in this subject, and my least favorite was math, since I felt completely lost. — Christie Laing

Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid. — Gore Vidal

My favorite subject was either English or History. I had a really awesome high school education. — Ian Harding

If when we are taught English we are just taught the rules of grammar, it would take all our love of our language away from us. What makes us love a subject like English is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination is what makes a subject come alive. — Daniel Tammet

Suddenly, she employed those very English weapons: devious good manners and a rapid change of subject. — Patricia Duncker

Mathematical knowledge is not-as all Cambridge men are surely aware-the result of any special gift. It is merely the development of those conceptions of form and number which every human being possesses; and any person of average intellect can make himself a fair mathematician if he will only pay continuous attention; in plain English, think enough about the subject. — Charles Kingsley

So she did the English thing. She changed the subject. — Steve Hockensmith

Math. It's your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real "aptitude" for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren't even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren't trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all.
You like it because either you're right or you're wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it's right or it's wrong and you're done with it. But even that's changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn't as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math. — Charles Benoit

I - and there are hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who felt on this subject as I do - have always liked my Celtic countrymen and disliked the English nation; it is a national trait of character, and I cannot help it. — Douglas Hyde

My favorite subject probably was math. I love math. Figures just intrigue me. I was really good at math. English probably was my worst subject. But I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write poetry all the time. — Herschel Walker

I started out as an actor, but I forced myself to be a writer, even though I wasn't very good at it and had never written. I don't think I ever passed an English course in my life. My first eight to 10 scripts were pretty horrendous, but I stayed at it, stayed at it, and stayed at it, until I eventually found a voice and a subject like Rocky that people were interested in. — Sylvester Stallone

In the preface to my Plays for Puritans I explained the predicament of our contemporary English drama, forced to deal almost exclusively with cases of sexual attraction, and yet forbidden to exhibit the incidents of that attraction or even to discuss its nature. Your suggestion that I should write a Don Juan play was virtually a challenge to me to treat this subject myself dramatically. The challenge was difficult enough to be worth accepting, because, when you come to think of it, though we have plenty — George Bernard Shaw

But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was an HYPOCHONDRIACK, was subject to what the learned, philosophical, and pious Dr. Cheyne has so well treated under the title of 'The English Malady. — Samuel Johnson

My favorite subject was English, and I wanted to study English abroad when I was young, when I was a kid, but my mom said 'No, it's too dangerous to go abroad by yourself.' So I gave up. — Doona Bae

Sometime during the processing we got a cavity search, to the laughter and comments of the guards. I hated that day when I started to learn my miserable English vocabulary. In such situations you're just better off if you don't understand English. The majority of the detainees wouldn't speak about the cavity searches we were subject to, and they would get angry when you started to talk about them. I personally wasn't ashamed; I think the people who did these searches without good reason should be ashamed of themselves. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I want to say to the literature teacher who remains wilfully, even boastfully ignorant of a major element of contemporary fiction: you are incompetent to teach or judge your subject. Readers and students who do know the field, meanwhile, have every right to challenge your ignorant prejudice. Rise, undergraduates of the English departments! You have nothing to lose but your A on the midterm! — Ursula K. Le Guin

English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be. — Zadie Smith

My favorite subject was English or creative writing. We did poems and making a magazine, and I did one on celebrities. I called it 'Celebrity Life Magazine.' I interviewed my good friend Kaley Cuoco. — Ashley Tisdale