Popular quotes about London! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 29
The first time I ever thought about doing a film seriously, I was in London. I was about 17 years old. I was just standing in the street, a bit dazzled by an Antonioni bus wipe, which by the way are inherent in London, and I imagined a film set in London starting out with the riff from The Yardbird's "Heart Full of Soul", and now, how ever many years later, I've done it.
William MonahanWe need to make it safe to cycle across London. Why not pedestrianise parts of London like Oxford Street and Parliament Square? I intend to plant 200 million trees across London in my term as mayor.
Sadiq KhanI suppose my dream was always about existing outside of London. Obviously the film world 10 years ago, when I first kicked off, was a very different landscape. Meeting anyone for a job on the crew, and on the cast, always meant a trip to London for me. But it's changed quite dramatically. You can't completely exist outside of what's down there, but things have changed massively.
Shane MeadowsMadrid is not as big as London, but it is true when you are coming from a big city like Madrid, nothing is going to surprise you, and I am very happy to move to a city like London. It is a big city, and you can do everything you want with the respect that the English people always have.
Fernando TorresYoung 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 GaimanThe London Games will be designed for the athletes and we will provide them with the very best venues and the very best conditions to pursue their sporting dreams in London.
Sebastian CoeI 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 OwenAs far as cities, I love London. I go to London very often because I think the young people there are very creative. I also love New York, of course, and the clash of different cultures you find there.
Nicki MinajNew York City has fantastic restaurants and, unlike London, a lot of the best restaurants are relatively cheap.
Tibor FischerIโm going to lie this one right on the line, right here, right now: Iโm pro big pants. Strident feminism NEEDS big pants. Really big. Iโm currently wearing a pair that could have been used as a fire blanket to put out the Great Fire of London at any point during the first 48 hours or so. They extend from the top of my thigh to my belly button, and effectively double up as a second property that I can escape to at weekends. If I were going to run for parliament, it would be solely on a platform of โGet Women In Massive Grundieโsโ.
Caitlin MoranTo play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.
Norman GranzIf I'd stayed on in London and carried on going to literary parties, it would have wrecked me as a writer.
Colin WilsonMy London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain.
Diane AbbottWhen 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 DickensI'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 WallaceAt an age when most youngsters are preparing for their GCSEs, I was suddenly a jet-setter, briefly the toast of Hollywood and London's West End. My immature wishes and naive opinions were treated with respect.
Jack WildA study of the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907 indicates that these panics were the result of the international bankers' operations in London.
Eustace MullinsLondon is one of the few cities where people still dress properly and fashion exists. Every day I see women who've thought about their outfits. They've picked out the bag, put on proper shoes. ... Do you know how rare it is in parts of America to actually see 'an outfit'? France? I don't want to be anti-French but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets.
Tom FordComedy 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 TuckerI've always liked the classic "young adult" writers like Mark Twain, Jack London, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens. They write so clearly, and they know how to entertain.
Arthur BradfordAnd when midst fallen London, they survey The stone where Alexander's ashes lay, Shall own with humbled pride the lesson must By Time's slow finger written in the dust.
Anna Letitia BarbauldAn American in London...cannot but be impressed and charmed by the city. The momumentality of Washington, the thriving business of New York, the antique intimacy of Boston, plus a certain spacious and open feeling reminiscent of Denver and San Francisco-all these he finds combined for his pleasure.
John UpdikeI've always said if I could own one piece it would be Vermeer's The Love Letter, and if I could put it anywhere it would be in a David Chipperfield building. I'm almost there with the building - Chipperfield is building a new house for me in London. The Vermeer is a long way off.
Tracey EminTheres just a big group of actors in London. There are new ones coming in all the time, who are looking for work, and established actors who are interested in working and like to work. To be a working actor in England is a life.
Rebecca EatonI am definitely pro-European, even pro-global, and house music and electronic music has developed a network all over the world, between record shops in Berlin, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Minneapolis and L.A. That's really what I feel part of, rather than being French.
Thomas BangalterI need a bath." He chuckled. "You smell of smoke, as do I." The duke turned, leaning heavily on his cane. "Jameson, open the carriage door. We shall return to the house." Beth smiled up at Christian. "Shall we adjourn to the house to get some ointment for your hands and a bath, my love?" His eyes lit. "A bath?" Grandfather snorted. "Someone send to London for a special license! Now.
Karen HawkinsI feel at home most places I go, but my very top of the list are Bali, Italy, and London. Those are like second homes to me.
Donna KaranI'm always afraid someone's going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, 'Back to North London'.
Alan ParkerOn my Instagram, I'm always keeping a record of things being pulled down in Soho and shutters being closed. Every city - and London more than anywhere - has got to be a vibrant mix of all different things. We can't allow it to become a monoculture.
Marc AlmondWe would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.
Winston ChurchillIn actual fact, I wanted to be an actor, but I was a lawyer, and I was a week away from qualifying and was fired. And that's the day I made an announcement: "Hey, for seven years, you thought I was going to be a lawyer. Well, I'm not. I've just lost my job, and I'm packing my bags and moving to London tomorrow to be an actor."
Gerard ButlerI have to admit, I am aware of my Latin roots now. In the past, people couldn't place me. They thought that I was Danish or English or French. They never got that I am Italian. I'm not typical, maybe because my visual education was very mixed. There was a lot of London in my aesthetic: The Face, i-D, British music, and a lot of British fashion . . . But I really enjoy this contrast. I can go from Lady Gaga to Brian Eno in a split second.
Italo ZucchelliA lot of pubs in London are now faceless, expensive yuppy bars. Not like when I was growing up. The pub used to be, and should be, the pillar of community.
Jason FlemyngMy maternal grandmother was in London during the Blitz. Indeed, the man she was dating before she met my grandfather was killed beside her in a cinema, in 1941, when a bomb came through the roof - a tragedy in which she herself was badly wounded.
Chris CleaveLondon exists normally in a state of bleach bypass. There's the artistic context of "Blow Up" and "Performance" and all the Sixties and Seventies British films that I grew up on, because I did very much grow up on British films.
William MonahanI'm a real Londoner. We have very grey weather in London, and I think it encourages a very eclectic and crazy fashion sense. I mix high-street stuff with more high-end fashion and vintage.
Emma WatsonWhen insolvent, pack minimally, with a valise tough enough to be thrown onto a London pavement from a first- or second-floor window. Insist on hotel rooms no higher.
David MitchellI don't think taste is about money. As your career develops, you're able to decide what to spend your money on. I live in a really small apartment in London, and that's a choice. I live at The Carlyle in New York, but it's not big. It's about making choices of style over flashiness. People's style is subjective and mine happens to be around the classical because I feel comfortable with that, and because of my background. I'm probably living in the wrong time. I should have lived in the Thirties or the Fifties.
Charles FinchLondon has always been a haven for victims of cruelty, and been improved by them. Yet I can see it changing now. Outsiders are demonised, there are little bits of legislation, people are scared.
Emma ThompsonI wanted to do London Boulevard because I saw the potential of a story about two people who need each other desperately, who love at first sight, as one does, and above all a story in which no one is what they appear to be.
William MonahanThere are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.
Herman MelvilleNot the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which the Count had left the theatre. His escape from us, that evening, was beyond all question the preliminary only to his escape from London. The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm-I felt as certain of it as if he had shown me the brand; and the betrayal of the Brotherhood was on his conscience-I had seen it in his recognition of Pesca.
Wilkie Collins