Quotes & Sayings About Swedes

Whenever I travel anywhere, I'm constantly asked if I'm Swedish. It's the burden of most Norwegians. The Swedes have just got a better publicity agent, I think. — Christopher Heyerdahl

She is not a musical girl nor, intrinsically, a joyful girl; but the music of the four Swedes shook something awake inside her, and when she heard it she felt airborne and strong. — Sonya Hartnett

Give me snuff, whiskey, and Swedes, and I will build a railroad to hell. — James J. Hill

Every time I'm in Canada I feel more Swedish, and every time I'm in Sweden I feel more Canadian. I belong in both places and I love them both equally. It's funny because the Swedes claim me as their Swedish pride and the Canadians call me their Canadian girl. I'll take it all. — Malin Akerman

The more I see of the Swedes, the more I am convinced that there is no kinder, simpler, and honester people in the world. — Bayard Taylor

It's interesting because Swedes subtitle everything, so they're so used to it. When my wife watches a show with subtitles, she has a skill to be able to watch and read. Whereas I'm more of a read or watch. — Greg Poehler

I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things. — Mona Sahlin

The Swedes have coined the term 'management by perkele' to portray the Finnish managerial approach. Instead of collectively pondering all the possible alternatives and letting every member of the staff from the cleaner to the MD voice their views, as the Swedes do, the Finns act swiftly and don't waste time on the decision-making process. If something isn't happening quickly enough, it is necessary for the top managers to slam their fists on the table and yell, 'Perkele!' Repeatedly, if necessary. — Tarja Moles

In winter night Massachusetts Street is dismal, the ground's frozen cold, the ruts and pock holes have ice, thin snow slides over the jagged black cracks. The river is frozen to stolidity, waits; hung on a shore with remnant show-off boughs of June
Ice skaters, Swedes, Irish girls, yellers and singers
they throng on the white ice beneath the crinkly stars that have no altar moon, no voice, but down heavy tragic space make halyards of Heaven on in deep, to where the figures fantastic amassed by scientists cream in a cold mass; the veil of Heaven on tiaras and diadems of a great Eternity Brunette called night. — Jack Kerouac

What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen. — J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

That's something USA Hockey has been trying to do for a long time is prove that we can play with the Canadians and the Russians and the Swedes and Finns consistently on a tournament basis. — Patrick Kane

I have been in a youth hostel ... You are put in a kitchen with seventeen venture scouts with behavioural difficulties and made to wash swedes. — Victoria Wood

Swedes, compared to Americans, can seem a little cold and introverted. — Yukimi Nagano

On average, the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are more similar to each other and are different from Australians, Israelis and the Swedes, who in turn are similar to each other and are different from Nigerians, Kenyans, and Jamaicans. — J. Philippe Rushton

I didn't really watch 'Dallas,' so I wasn't as wowed by the idea of Patrick Duffy as Swedes were 'cause he's, like, the most famous guy in all of Sweden. — Greg Poehler

Nobel Prize in Literature [10w]
Only fools and Swedes equate literary prizes with literary merit. — Beryl Dov

On some subconscious level, I've been prejudiced against turnips, parsnips, swedes and other roots. Do they taste of much? Are they really special? How wrong I was. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Tennis legend Bjorn Borg appeared in a Swedish TV ad urging Swedes to have more sex to solve the country's falling birth rate. America can help. This is a perfect opportunity to name Jesse Jackson ambassador to Sweden. — Argus Hamilton

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilisation, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! — Ray Bradbury

Just remember, what the French say. No, probably not the French, they've got a president or something. The Brits, maybe, or the Swedes. You know what I mean?"
"No, Matthew. What do they say?"
"The king is dead, that's what they say. The king is dead. Long live the king. — Neil Gaiman

Swedes are such a civilised, perfect society - at least on the surface. There's a great safety net, a huge middle class, free education, free health care. People are very polite, they wait their turn. They're not too loud, they're not too quiet, but sometimes it's a little too perfect. — Alexander Skarsgard

Swedes don't like to ask favors of each other: they keep their problems to themselves and suffer in silence. Being duktig is one facet of this: if you are duktig then you don't need any help, and as duktighet is the ultimate ideal for Swedes; to ask for help - or even to give it - is a kind of low-level social taboo. — Michael Booth

Glimpse of him. Once things got hot, I tended pretty much to my own knittin. I glanced around just once and saw him upstreet beyond them Swedes under the Bijou's marquee, " Mr. Keene said. "He wasn't wearing a clown suit or nothing like that. He was dressed in a pair of farmer's biballs and a cotton shirt underneath. But his face was covered with that white greasepaint they use, and he had a big red clown smile painted on. Also had these tufts of fake hair, you know. Orange. Sorta comical. — Stephen King

My passion,
My queen of fire and dread;
Divine amalgamation
Of swedes and cooper-thread,
Unstitch your irritation
And kiss me when I'm dead. — Mervyn Peake

Swedes, we are not - Russians, we do not want to become ... so let us be Finnish. — Adolf Ivar Arwidsson

America hadn't really been suited for its long and tiresome role as the Last Superpower, the World's Policeman. As a patriotic American, Oscar was quite content to watch other people's military coming home in boxes for a while. The American national character wasn't suited for global police duties. It never had been. Tidy and meticulous people such as the Swiss and the Swedes were the types who made good cops. America was far better suited to be the World's Movie Star. The world's tequila-addled pro-league bowler. The world's acerbic, bipolar stand-up comedian. Anything but a somber and tedious nation of socially responsible centurions. — Bruce Sterling

In Sweden, self-sufficiency and autonomy is all; [interpersonal] debt of any kind, be it emotional, a favor, or cash, is to be avoided at all cost. The Swedes don't even like to owe a round of drinks. — Michael Booth

Swedes up in Dakota - know what they do sometimes? Put pepper on the floor. Gits up the ladies' skirts an' makes 'em purty lively - lively as a filly in season. Swedes do that sometimes." In — John Steinbeck

If the world's population had the productivity of the Swiss, the consumption habits of the Chinese, the egalitarian instincts of the Swedes, and the social discipline of the Japanese, then the planet could support many times its current population without privation for anyone. On the other hand, if the world's population had the productivity of Chad, the consumption habits of the United States, the inegal-itarian instincts of India, and the social discipline of Argentina, then the planet could not support anywhere near its current numbers. 9 NO — Laurie Ann Mazur

Thank God for the tsunami, and thank God that two thousand dead Swedes are fertilizing the ground over there [in Asia]. How many of these two thousand, do you suppose, were fags and dykes? This is how the Lord deals with His enemies. And the Lord has got some enemies. And Sweden heads the list. You filthy Swedes. You filthy Swedes! — Fred Phelps

This, truly, is the ugly side of rampant neo-liberalist capitalism," I thought to myself, leaving hurriedly. "Not even the Swedes would put Camembert and Tandoori sauce in a burger." The — Michael Booth

had gone to work in Worcester's famous Washburn & Moen barbed wire factory: Swedes were preferred by employers there because, unlike the Irish, they did not tend to get either fighting drunk or unionized. — Richard Davenport-Hines

Danish is a different language, even though Danish people understand Swedes, and very few Swedes understand Danish. — Joel Kinnaman

Sicily is a blessed land. First, because of its geographic position in the Mediterranean. Second, for its history and all the different peoples who have settled there: Arabs, Greeks, Normans, the Swedes. That has made us different from others. We exaggerate, we overdo. We love Greek tragedy. We cry, we fight, sometimes for nothing. — Marcello Giordani

The second prong in my revised Trinity is IKEA, the Swedish home store monolith. If you're unfamiliar, they carry every single thing you could possibly ever need to fill your home and garden at low, low prices, but in obscure Swedish sizes so those items won't coordinate with anything else you own, like, say, if you want to put a regular Target lamp shade on your IKEA lamp. Fletch thinks it's Sweden's master plan to make Americans so busy trying to construct furniture with Allen wrenches that we don't notice they've invaded us. (Personally, I think it's payback; the Swedes are pissed that we aren't buying ABBA albums anymore.) — Jen Lancaster

Curiously, the Swedes looked for untouched snow, while the Norwegians wanted marked and prepared tracks so that they could race along the valleys and over the plateau. Another difference: Swedes carried equipment to face the elements; the Norwegians put their trust in mobility and light equipment, sometimes with dire consequences. — Roland Huntford

Therefore does the world love the Swedes, because in the midst of their woes they can draw it all to their bosom and be so galant that they shine a long way away. — Isak Dinesen

Swedes are a really humble and shy people in many ways, but I think it's pretty much the same as in the U.S. Little girls want to take photographs with me at lunch. — Joel Kinnaman

The Swedes must be integrated into the new Sweden , the old Sweden will not return. — Mona Sahlin