Popular quotes about London! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
In London I have been by turns poor and rich, hopeful and despondent, successful and down and out, utterly miserable and ecstatically, dizzily happy. I belong to London as each of us can belong to only one place on this earth. And, in the same way, London belongs to me.
Gertrude LawrenceLondon College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, offers the range of subjects that help young designers to arrange the underpinnings that are necessary to get from zero to 10. The hardest part is the beginning, understanding your passion and making the decision that whatever it takes, that's what you're going to do. London College of Fashion shows them what they must do and helps them to find their goal.
Carmen Dell'OreficeLondon life was very full and exciting [...] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray.
Sylvia Townsend WarnerWe shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army; and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.
Winston ChurchillParis is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.
Orson WellesI was born in London and raised in Rome until I was 4. Then we went back to London, where I went to school.
Naomi CampbellI do find London exciting. Much as I hate to agree with that tedious old git Samuel Johnson, and despite the pompous imbecility of his famous remark about when a man is tired of London he is tired of life...I can't dispute it.
Bill BrysonI was born in England and brought up in London. When I was 18 I read a book and came across the Dharma. I was halfway through the book when I turned to my mother and said, "I'm a Buddhist," to which she replied, "Oh are you dear? Well finish the book and then you can tell me about it." I realised I'd always been Buddhist but I just hadn't known it existed, because in those days not even the word 'Buddha' was ever spoken. This was in in the 1960s, so there wasn't that much available, even in London.
Tenzin PalmoTwo successive commissioners in London police were fired by the mayor that came into office. That doesn't mean the police in London is not independent and does not exercise powers. Ultimately it is the political executive that has to answer.
P. ChidambaramI wake up every morning and I feel like I'm juggling glass balls. I live in Los Angeles, my business is run out of London, and most evenings I'm cuddled up in front of Skype, in my dressing gown, speaking with my studio in London. I travel a lot, my team travel a lot, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Victoria BeckhamI think I got into acting because I kind of had not much else to do! I guess I was kind of looking for something challenging. I heard about the London Theater scene and it was very different from the upbringing that I had and it felt like a challenge. And the whole sort of London Theater schools, I was told that 6,000 apply and there are like 30 accepted to each one. I was like, "Yeah. Let's see if we can do that!"
Jeremy IrvinePeople constantly make the mistake of comparing London with New York, Milan and Paris and that's not what it's about. London has its own fashion identity. You come here to find the next Alexander McQueen or John Galliano.
Anna WintourBeing a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the "London once-over" - a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling.
Ben AaronovitchNot part of any London combination and you have to go a long way from London really to... to throw that feeling off. So, it's right and fitting that the Beatles came from Liverpool. If they hadn't, I wouldn't have got involved. It wouldn't have interested me. And they wouldn't have hired me.
Derek TaylorTo me, the difference between New York and London is that things are boring and staid in London. But even the sh-tty diner and bars here are kind of exciting for me. Downtown is funky, West Village is beautiful with the cobbled streets, but I love going uptown because you then you go, "F-ck, I'm in New York!" You see all the skyscrapers.
Theo JamesMany of my favourite hotels are in London. I like the Covent Garden Hotel and I stayed at Blakes last time I was in London. I like the feeling of warmth and homeliness that you get from both of those places.
Diego LunaShakespeare wouldn't have been any good if he'd stayed in Stratford. He had to go to London to be bathed in the full current of the Renaissance.
John Dos PassosI spent two years living in London - I'd have stayed for ever if I could have got a work visa. It was there I started collecting vinyl and fell in love with the sounds of the 1970s.
Lady StarlightI'd been reading Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year when the [1992 Los Angeles] riots broke out and I began to see them both - L.A. and the London plague - as the same event. A time of crisis. A time when rich and poor get thrown together - and, suddenly one sees alternatives. I began to think about what happens when the containment of a presumed danger through the regimentation of space breaks down, such as when South-Central L.A. began to invade Beverly Hills.
Naomi WallaceI definitely want to do more movies, and I'm also a writer, so I have a few screenplays that I'm working on, one of them based off my one-woman show that I used to do in New York. Two of the screenplays I've written by myself, and then I'm also working on one with my writing partner, Tom Riley, who's in London.
Eliza CoupeAn actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.
Donald SindenThe day Tarzan opened in London, I sat in a hotel room and discussed the project in detail.
Phil CollinsI've missed London so much for its fashion. No disrespect to the girls in Manchester, but some really do look like clones - there's a lot of hair extensions and fake tans. You're free to experiment down here.
Kaya ScodelarioI'm timeless, I got that Dickensian, London street-urchin look in high school. I'll never be in style, but I'll always be different.
Stevie NicksI went to comprehensive school in North London and left without any qualifications [diploma]. And I was doing bits of acting and improv in a drama club in the evenings. Then I discovered you didn't need qualifications to go to art school, you just needed a body of work.
Joe WrightIn those sticky summer nights in South London our windows stay open and our tiny apartment becomes our secret garden. The magic of the secret garden is that it exists in our imagination. There are no limits, no borderlines. The secret garden leads to the marigolds of Mogadishu and the magnolias of Kingston and when the heat turns us sticky and sweet and unwilling to be claimed by defeat we own the night. We own our bodies. We own our lives.
Diriye OsmanA collector recently bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWe had spent a lot of time in London [with Lucas Goodman], which has been amazing, but also it was kind of a homecoming and we felt so surrounded by a specific community of people who are just so New York, so unapologetically themselves and so creative.
Jillian HerveyI wasn't captivated by the romance of Paris or London. I love visiting, but I'd rather be in L.A.
Edward RuschaI cannot love people in the country, I discover, because there is always this danger that they may be acquaintances, with all the perils and choleras of acquaintance implicit in them; but in London they seem as charming as rabbits.
Sylvia Townsend WarnerI'm always afraid someone's going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, 'Back to North London'.
Alan ParkerAs a relatively young woman - I'm 33 - I hope to one day have a family and already have commitments. If and when I'm elected as an MP, I would face a choice: take my family with me to London each week or be apart for four, maybe five, nights a week.
Lucy PowellI feel comfortable in places like London. You get many cultures in L.A. but it's strangely segregated.
Sandra OhLondon is a dead duck, as far as innovative new music is concerned, unless you want to have your head blown off with some outrageous, rubbish, pounding dance music.
Jeff BeckWestward, beyond the still pleasant, but, even then, no longer solitary, hamlet of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered houses and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented the rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of Westminister and London.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonIt must be said that Brighton, unlike London, makes driving seem very appealing. Instead of glowering faces and angry horns on all sides, we have the coast road in front of us and the Sussex Downs just 10 minutes behind us.
Julie BurchillI did get to shadow some amazing brain surgeons, a female brain surgeon in Toronto, another surgeon in London. And then we had a surgeon onset [of Doctor Strange] every day. So and he taught me to do sutures and was practicing on turkey breasts, raw turkey breasts.
Rachel McAdamsBernard [Leach] had acquired many [Shoji] Hamada works. Some of them, it was interesting - first of all, Hamada worked in St. Ives for about four years before returning to Japan to start his own pottery. He had exhibitions in London, and if these exhibitions didn't sell out, the galleries were instructed to send the remaining work down to the Leach Pottery, where they would go into the showroom for sale. If Bernard saw one that hadn't sold that he really admired, then he would take it (he would buy it), and it would go into the house.
Warren MacKenzieWhat inspires me is what I see people wearing on the streets of the world from New York to London and beyond. I get my ideas and inspiration from pounding the pavement all over the world. Today, fashion is dictated by individual style. To me, the fashion of the future is anything that a young guy or girl feels good wearing as long as it's put together in the right way.
Steve MaddenLetโs not ask Barbara Walters about how Muslim women feel. Letโs not ask Tom Brokaw how Muslim women feel. Letโs not ask CNN, ABC, FOX, The London Times, or the Australia Times. Letโs not ask non-Muslims how Muslim women feel, how they live, what are their principles, and what are their challenges. If you want to be fair, ask a Muslim woman. Ask my wife. Ask my mother. Ask a Muslim woman who knows her religion, who has a relationship with her Creator, who is stable in her society, understands her responsibilities. Ask her.
Khalid YasinI don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, actually, some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny... I forgive him everything.
Elizabeth GilbertI cook. I go to farmers markets in London and cook really good sort of organic foods.
Keira KnightleyI really see myself as a homegirl. Wales is my first home. London is my second home - I've been there 14 years now.
Katherine JenkinsI do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.
Mose Allison