Popular quotes about London! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I think one of the London Film Festival strengths is that it's set in London but it's not about London. It's about the diversity of this city and it's about world cinema. And that's what London is - London is a place where its identity is always in a state of flux. So, this festival celebrates the way in which it is always changing. That's why London is a fascinating place and that's why the film festival is a fascinating film festival.
Eddie MarsanI was every Londoner's stereotypical idea of a brash, vulgar American. When I got here, it turned out that London was the Wild West, and New York was like London at the height of the Victorian era, in which everyone was far more obsessed with table manners and status-climbing than they are in London. In London, everyone was just crawling over this blizzard of cocaine. Here, if you have more than a glass of wine with your meal, people refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Toby YoungIt was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.
Charles DickensIn 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 LawrenceI was a carpenter in Northern Vermont and got this tax refund check that just about covered a one-way airfare to London. So this I saw as a sign from God. So I went over to see Ray [Hussett] for a couple of weeks and ended up staying 10 years. I got work as a stage carpenter at the Oval House in Kennington, South London.
John RatzenbergerComing to New York is like a big hug, everyone is so welcoming. There's something about here, everyone makes you feel so at home. I miss my family of course, but I don't miss London that much. I was worried, but I feel really at home. Everyone says that who comes here from London, but I didn't believe them.
Archie PanjabiLondon Fashion Week is so different from any of the others. Compared to the strictness in New York, London seems freer from commercial constraints. Truer to the process, to street style, to a sense of humour.
Alexa ChungWe 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 ChurchillI started going back and forth, New York, London, New York, London. I wasn't looking back at all. I was doing tons of jobs. Working, working, working, working.
Kate MossYoung man," he said, "understand this: there are two Londons. There's London Aboveโthat's where you livedโand then there's London Belowโthe Undersideโinhabited by the people who fell through the cracks in the world. Now you're one of them. Good night.
Neil GaimanI go home to London in between jobs, and in London, my life has nothing to do with the business. It's a family life, hanging with friends.
Clive OwenIn England everything is liberalised. Within certain boundaries and rules everybody can do what he likes. Maybe London's society has a different tempo, a different dynamic. London is fast, productive, creative but it is not England. If you want to transfer that to football, you could say: in the four big English clubs and maybe in the one or two behind them there is a top level. Everything that comes after that rather mirrors English society. It's honest, fair and hard, sometimes also fast, but not always so perfect.
Jens LehmannI think Katy B encapsulates young London in a way I never could. She reps London harder than anyone song-wise since Lily Allen.
Mark RonsonLamplighters are the guys who manually turned on all the street lamps in London and turned them off. That was the gig in the 1930s in London.
Lin-Manuel MirandaMy background is advertising: I moved to New York from London in 1998 to start up the U.S. office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
Cindy GallopThe color and spectacle of Mexico's streets sparked my interest in community driven space and experience, a passion that I began to develop while studying architecture at Syracuse University and then at the Architectural Association School in London. Having been immersed in such a diverse array of lively environments, it would be impossible for me not to use these memories and experiences as inspiration for my work.
David RockwellThe one enemy in the world that America has is England. But then, England is the great land of Christian civilization, and it may not be a thing to be much wondered at that our Americans whom we send to represent us in London become in a short time somewhat civilized, and learn to love those who hate them, bless those that curse them, and do good to those that persecute and calumniate them.
Jeremiah O'Donovan RossaI hope we get a real diversity in perspectives from the good, the bad and the ugly. I love living in London so I hope there are submissions that celebrate the City while also showing that there are many challenges we need to face together.
David LammyWhile I was in London it was completely upside-down. I got a whole new life and it was a challenge to keep in touch with my life in Ireland, but it was great fun. Now though, I've been back home since November and gradually all connections with my HP life have been fading.
Evanna LynchIf you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia.
Jim RogersWhen they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.
Charles DickensAfter living in LA for 8 years, I sort of wanted a change, but there's not much production in New York, which is where I primarily live, so I just sort of drifted over to London.
Alex WinterAmerica is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub.
C. Wright MillsLondon is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.
Renzo PianoComedy comes from a place of hurt. Charlie Chaplin was starving and broke in London, and that's where he got his character 'the tramp' from. It's a bad situation that he transformed into comedic one.
Chris TuckerWe 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 HerveyImagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!
Thomas Bailey AldrichWe would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.
Winston ChurchillAt the time, we thought it was a nice way to say something unique about the group to make us different from all the other bands kicking around in London.
Gerry BeckleyI'm always willing to work that little bit harder to achieve what I need to achieve because I feel like it's a blessing for me to be here. I was never supposed to be here. I'm the black council estate kid, single parent, from West London, with friends that are in jail, friends that have committed heinous crimes, friends that are doing nothing. I'm not supposed to be here, therefore I have nothing to lose. I'm always going to work harder than everyone else because if it doesn't work, "So what?".
Noel ClarkeThe whole scale and scope of the decorating and fashion business in this country are incomparably grander than in London. Whats thrilling about America in general, and the New York fashion scene in particular, is its optimism. It makes the whole experience energizing and uplifting.
Hamish BowlesHowever, we do not lack anti-terrorist laws. I do not believe that the recent London bombs were the result of any deficiencies in our legal system.
Kenneth ClarkeThe Southbank Centre Unlimited Festival was a distinct moment in time, an amazing counterpoint to the London 2012 Paralympics. There is no question that a major shift in perspective is taking place, that the world is waking up and greeting - as if for the first time - the extraordinary community of people with disability.
Charles HazlewoodYou silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.
Oscar WildeI came to live in Shepperton in 1960. I thought: the future isn't in the metropolitan areas of London. I want to go out to the new suburbs, near the film studios. This was the England I wanted to write about, because this was the new world that was emerging.
J. G. BallardI went to drama college in England - the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London. I was there for not quite two years, then I got Star Wars.
Carrie FisherGlaswegian ebola patient moved to London's Royal Free Hospital. Not so independent when it matters most are we jocksville?
Katie HopkinsI love London. I know it's an old saying but there's always something to do, so much so that when you live here you end up not actually doing much!
Clive RoweI never felt totally, 100%, patriotically English... I'd seen a lot of the world by an early age - sort of spent a lot of time traveling around Lebanon and I'd seen Babylon, and Damascus, and all sorts of places in the Middle East by the time I was ten. Then we'd return to Ruslip in West London... Done a fair bit of traveling really.
Andy SerkisNira Park, who is my longtime producer and friend - I've know her since we did Spaced, the TV show - she gave me this script the last day of filming The World's End. She said, "Take a look at this. It's filming in London next year, and you might like to look at Jack." I trust Nira implicitly.
Simon Pegg