Funny English Quotes & Sayings

It was funny, I thought, eyeing the Chinese and English logos on the crates, the names of the companies that supplied both countries, funny because our weapons to kill each other were different. But our medicines to save lives were the same. — James Abel

My mom was my English teacher in high school. So to be able to bend the rules and be the class clown and get to take on my religion, my mom, and my town all at the same time was glorious. I think the desire to be funny was a mixture of wanting to be liked but also wanting to throw your elbows a bit. If you're cracking a joke in school, it's sort of anti-authority, but it's in the nicest, "Please like me!" way. — Paul Rust

Lia let out a low growl and moved her arrow to the base of his fat throat. "What do you think, Gabi? Would you like to see these nuptials through?"
"Not this day," I said
"How about on the morrow?" Marcello asked, smiling and lifting my hand to his lips. "If I am your groom?"
"Hold that eHarmony thought," Lia whispered in English. "We gotta get out of here. — Lisa Tawn Bergren

There is a funny story I always tell my students...when I came for the first time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they take leads to success" ~smile — Pablo

I think it's cool to do stuff in a different language. Basically, I learned English through listening to rap. A lot of people think it's funny. But it's true; I used to try to get the accents. — Wyclef Jean

When I went to London, they told me I spoke with a funny accent - English with a Chinese accent. — Jean-Georges Vongerichten

Seeing the way his trousers clung to those most English parts. — Seth Grahame-Smith

So I went to bed, full, happy, and caring nothing for all the hurt of all the englished Welshmen that ever festered upon a proud land — Richard Llewellyn

[ ... ] and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. — Vladimir Nabokov

It's funny because if you ever ask anyone in England to try and do a Beatles accent, no one knows what they really sound like. If you ask anyone in America, they would try and give it a go. English people just know their songs. — Aaron Johnson

I was not born with English in my pocket. — Santosh Kalwar

I'm English. We're about as tactful as a hot poker up the bum, most of the time. — L.H. Thomson

Peter is ... adjusting. He's back in school, and he's doing quite well. I wish you could find it in your heart to forgive him."
"I've got this funny resentful streak about people who try to kill me. — Josh Lanyon

Dinner was a lonely affair. Funny how you could be surrounded by your family, your blood, and yet feel totally alone. Even with the sun shining on the sparkling shores of English Bay and Josh at my side, I felt like I was invisible, and in a dark, dark place. — Karina Halle

I didn't understand how funny this play Much Ado About Nothing truly was until I became an English teacher and had to teach it. There is no wittier dialogue anywhere. — Dan Brown

Dad says there are more than three thousand letters in the Japanese alphabet, which could pose a problem. There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, and I get into enough trouble with them as it is. — Rin Chupeco

Stick." I said in Russian. I had no clue what the word for stake was. I pointed at the silver ring I wore and made a slashing motion. "Stick. where?"
He stared at me in utter confusion and then asked in perfect English, "why are you talking like that? — Richelle Mead

Maybe because I began as a writer, I have a good ear for dialogue, and maybe being an English major - and that I also read a lot as a kid - if I hear somebody say something that I think's funny, or I find a situation or story, I'll try to work that into the movie. — Owen Wilson

He won't feel a fraction of what I do for you. You won't change his life. And you will always wonder about what could have been, always feel that funny little ache right here. He puts his hand over your heart. — Josh Lanyon

And in repose one might have admired so fine a specimen of English manhood, until the foppish ways, the affected movements, the perpetual inane laugh, brought one's admiration of Sir Percy Blakeney to an abrupt close. — Emmuska Orczy

My uncle is so funny - Don Vito. He was always fat with the craziest voice. Dude, he barely speaks English; it's just full-blown jibber-jabber. It's so funny to watch on TV because you really need subtitles because you can't understand him. — Bam Margera

My wife is funny. And I dabble in it. So being funny is big around our house. But what's surprised me is my daughter can do an English accent. I don't know how she learned this. — Jerry Seinfeld

O, I do read Indian novels sometimes. But you know, Ms Rupinder, what we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. What are we, then, Ms Rupinder? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbour's children in five minutes, and our own in ten. Keep this in mind before you do any business in this country. — Aravind Adiga

The East End of Glasgow is like the Olympics. Lots of foriegners in tracksuits struggling to speak English. — Frankie Boyle

Sarah Jane Smith was everybody's hero when I was younger, and as brave and funny and brilliant as people only ever are in stories. But many years later, when I met the real Sarah Jane - Lis Sladen herself - she was exactly as any child ever have wanted her to be. Kind and gentle and clever; and a ferociously talented actress, of course, but in that perfectly English unassuming way. — Steven Moffat

What fascinated me about English was what I later recognized as its hybrid etymoogy: blunt Anglo-Saxon concreteness, sleek Norman French urbanity, and polysyllabic Greco-Roman abstraction. The clash of these elements, as competitive as Italian dialects is invigorating, richly entertaining, and often funny, as it is to Shaskespeare, who gets tremendous effects out of their interplay. The dazzling multiplicity of sounds and word choices in English makes it brilliantly suited to be a language of poetry.. — Camille Paglia

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh. — Alain De Botton

A pause followed my greeting. Then "We're watching you " whispered the voice on the other end.
"Yeah? Did you see what I did with my keys? "
Silence. Then dial tone.
These younger demons. So easily discouraged. — Josh Lanyon

Mr. Idris Elba is amazing! He happens to be British, but what's funny about him is that when he's speaking in his American dialect, he looks like he's a brother from the 'hood. But as soon as he brings out that English thing, I'm like, 'Woo! You look like you're from London. Oh my God!' It's like everything on him changes. He's so cool! — Tasha Smith

The English are worried about the Euro being brought in because of loss of national identity and rising prices. In Scotland, people are just worried in case they have to close Poundstretcher. — Frankie Boyle

My seven a.m. teacher was from France. And he spoke Frenglish. Sometimes it was funny, but when he announced which chapters we should study and the names came out in English, but the chapter numbers came out in French, I wanted to strangle the sacre bleu out of him. — Lila Felix

Love is simple, if you allow it to be simple. Julian to Hannah, Take A Chance — Alison Wong

Many Canadian nationalists harbour the bizarre fear that should we ever reject royalty, we would instantly mutate into Americans, as though the Canadian sense of self is so frail and delicate a bud, that the only thing stopping it from being swallowed whole by the US is an English lady in a funny hat. — Will Ferguson

So,if it's all love or money, which is Alex Bainbridge?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"He's a turd, Ella. He looked right through you like you were a ghost, but you still have a thing for him."
"I do n-"
"Don't even. You've gone through the whole week watching for him. So what is it? I would really like to know. Love or money?"
"I have not been watching for him!" I snapped. Oh, but I had, in every hallway, at lunch, when I took my seat at the edge of English class. "And if I have, it's just so I can look away first."
Frankie rolled his eyes. "Shall I get you a pail of water?"
"Why?"
"Your pants are on fire."
I actually looked down at my lap. "Oh, very funny." I shot Sadie a look when she giggled. — Melissa Jensen

It's funny, I started by making fake American movies, 'The Transporter' and stuff like that. I was shooting in France, but everything was in English. But then afterwards, I was looking at real French movies like the Jacques Audiard movies. — Louis Leterrier

I wonder if I talk like a dead man. My daughter once came home from school very excited about some lecture -this was years ago, before I died, though just right before- and she said her English teacher had talked about what the dead sound like in Dante. This funny thing about Dante's dead, which is that they know the past, and even the future, but they don't know the present. About the present they have all these questions for Dante. And that somehow is what being alive is, to be suspended in the time. She seemed to feel that really meant something. That and also that the dead know themselves better than the living do. — Rivka Galchen

It is best if the guard is in love with America and wants to overawe the American by being a premium guard. This kind of guard thinks that he will encounter the American again one day in America, and that the American will offer to take him to a Chicago Bulls game, and buy him blue jeans and white
bread and delicate toilet paper. This guard dreams of speaking English
without an accent and obtaining a wife with an unmalleable bosom. This guard will confess that he does not love where he lives.
The other kind of guard is also in love with America, but he will hate the American for being an American. This is worst. This guard knows he will never go to America, and knows that he will never meet the American again. He will steal from the American, and terror the American, only to teach that he can. — Jonathan Safran Foer

It's funny how a film about a murderous old English toff can help you. — Jim Broadbent

Richard Burton had a tremendous passion for the English language, especially the spoken and written word — Frank Bough

Continental people have a sex life; the English have hot-water bottles. — George Mikes

A woman who is praying and a woman who is having fun, they both say " Oh My God", the only difference is how they pronounce it. — M.F. Moonzajer

If water was beer I'd be a teetotaler — Benny Bellamacina

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself. — Robin Williams

Everything in English sounded funny. — Richard House

I suppose I could have been nicer when I was at Columbia. I could have been polite, respectful, turned in my papers on time. Funny thing is, I knew a guy like that. English major. Loved to read. Never got in any trouble, just hung out in Butler Library reading poetry and English history. Ran into him the other day. Guy has three master's degrees, taught high school, even did a few years in the Marines. Know what he does today?
He makes $9.75 an hour as a librarian.
I was a jerk when I went to Columbia. But I was never a sucker. — Ted Rall

I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation. — Pharrell Williams

There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny. — Tom Stoppard

It's funny because when I'm outside Australia, I never get to do my Australian accent in anything. It's always a Danish accent or an English accent or an American accent. — Mallory Jansen

We drank coffee. We talked. She loved Charles Dickens, whom she read in Norwegian. Years after she was dead, I wrote a dissertation on Dickens, and though my study of the great man would no doubt have alarmed her, I had a funny feeling that by taking on the English novelist I was returning to my Norwegian roots. — Siri Hustvedt

Everyone tells me I have a funny accent. It's because I copy people. I learned English at school but have best friends who are French, Australian, English and American; a very weird mix. — Caroline Winberg

Why did you tell her I'm your boyfriend? Why doesn't she know about your real one? - Timmy
He's English! And Mom ... Mom hates foreigners!
- Cat — Jeaniene Frost

Me neither," Shane put in. "Homie don't play that."
"I wonder, sometimes, if your generation speaks English at all," Amelie said. — Rachel Caine

So the Trustees of Ohio State were right in 1956 when they canned the English instructor for assigning Catcher in the Rye to his freshman class. They knew there is no qualitative difference between the kid who thinks it's funny to fart in chapel, and Che Guevara. They knew then Holden Caulfield would found SDS. — E.L. Doctorow

An english baron wed to my daughter? I'll die first, I will." Johanna quit rubbing Claire's shoulder and stepped forward.
"A very rich baron," she blurted out. The laird frowned at Johanna with what she thought was indignation.
"Wealth is not an issue here," he muttered. "How rich?"
They were married an hour later. — Julie Garwood

Stella explained that when he had arrived, because of his English accent, she had assumed that he was me, and had asked where his fridge was. She didn't tell me what his reply was, and we can only hazard a guess, but I was impressed that he had been prepared to stay the night. It is surely a brave man who goes ahead and checks into an establishment where the first question is 'Where's your fridge?'. Especially if, as he had done, you had arrived by motorcycle. — Tony Hawks

Because you've been on dates where y'know, you forget to open your eyes and wear pants and speak English. — David Cross

I'm worried I will leave grad school and no longer be able to speak English. I know this woman in grad school, a friend of a friend, and just listening to her talk is scary. The semiotic dialetics of intertextual modernity. Which makes no sense at all. Sometimes I feel that they live in a parallel universe of academia speaking acadamese instead of English and they don't really know what's happening in the real world. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note
to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form - like maybe a
watch or necklace.) — Ally Carter

If a playwright is funny, the English look for a serious message, and if he's serious, they look for a joke. — Sacha Guitry

All I could determine was that it must have been a nice thing to see if it was a house you were thinking about moving into. But not so nice if it was the house you were moving out from. I could practically hear Mr Collins, who had taught my fifth-grade English class and was still the most intimidating teacher I'd ever had, yelling at me. "Amy Curry," I could still hear him intoning, "never end a sentence with a preposition!" Irked that after six hears he was still mentally correcting me, I told the Mr. Collins in my head to off fuck. — Morgan Matson

John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since! — Bertrand Russell

I was excellent at English and Drama. Maths and Science I was terrible at. I didn't have any interest in them. I was happiest at lunchtime, playing with my friends. But I love science now, that's the funny thing. And I'd be so good at geography, as I've been fortunate enough to travel the world. — Peter Andre

There is a story I always tell my students ... when I came for the 1st time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they open leads to success — Pablo

It's funny in the U.K., where I'm not really known because I never did a soap. My English cousins in the Lake District think I'm not a real actor because they've never seen me in 'Home and Away' or 'Neighbours.' — Jacki Weaver

Fine's a funny word, don't you think? I don't think there's another like it in the English language that says so much while actually saying so little. — Emma Chase

The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water. — Oscar Wilde

I went to England to tell jokes, and I wanted to tell my Smokey the Bear joke, but I had to ask the English people if they knew who Smokey the Bear is. But they don't. In England, Smokey the Bear is not the forest-fire-prevention representative. They have Smackie the Frog. It's a lot like a bear, but it's a frog. And that's a better system, I think we should adopt it. Because bears can be mean, but frogs are always cool. Never has there been a frog hopping toward me and I thought, "Man, I better play dead!" — Mitch Hedberg

I hope God speaks English. If I get up to heaven and have to point at a menu, I'm gonna be pissed. — Daniel Tosh

You mustn't let men drive you to mangling the English language, no matter how sweet they are. — Marisa De Los Santos

We started when I was in the fourth grade, which would have made me ten, I guess. It's different for everyone, but at that age, though I couldn't have said that I was gay, I knew that I was not like the other boys in my class or my Scout troop. While they welcomed male company, I shrank from it, dreaded it, feeling like someone forever trying to pass, someone who would eventually be found out, and expelled from polite society. Is this how a normal boy would swing his arms? I'd ask myself, standing before the full-length mirror in my parents' bedroom. Is this how he'd laugh? Is this what he would find funny? It was like doing an English accent. The more concentrated the attempt, the more self-conscious and unconvincing I became. — David Sedaris

My parents are very funny when they have to deal with anything racy or off-color. They usually pretend they don't speak English. — Margaret Cho

I beg your pardon; I am drunk without a drink. English wine & words are vulnerable to every man. — Santosh Kalwar

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility. — Umberto Eco

I don't follow anything blindly. I have to know the entire thing, if I have to get in to it. It might sound funny to you, but it's like using English language. I use an English word only when I know its meaning and understand its connotation. You won't hear me say, 'What's up, dude' or anything like that just for the heck of it. — Kailash Kher

I think the English are bipolar. 'We're the greatest, no we're terrible' - that's a constant English struggle. Crime is down, there's little poverty - yet it's always the worst time to have lived here. — Dara O Briain

I do have very deep, fond memories of my family in Mexico City, but I also remember feeling funny for not speaking English - I was basically an immigrant. But I picked up the language fast and soon I knew that I wanted to be a writer. — Louis C.K.

Apparently the complete works of Shakespeare packed quite a wallop. To think, my mother said I'd never find use for an English degree. Ha! I'd like to see her knock someone silly with an apron and a cookie press. — Rachel Vincent

In the Belgian backwaters, south of Bruges, there lives a reclusive English composer, named Vyvyan Ayrs. You won't have heard of him because you're a musical oaf, but he's one of the greats. — David Mitchell

It's funny because I'm so used to acting in English that any time I have these moments where I have to speak Russian, it definitely takes a different part of my brain to pull it off, but it's always nice and fun. — Ksenia Solo

She blinked at me, then realized I was panicking. Honestly, it was like admitting to murder before being interrogated.
"Ms. Davidson," she began, but I decided to trip her up, to throw her off the trail of blood I'd left like an injured animal.
"I don't speak English. — Darynda Jones