Popular quotes about London! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 36
I 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 YoungI 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 RatzenbergerIt is almost impossible to open a newspaper without reading something about the London housing market. House prices are rising at such a rate that the vast majority of Londoners can't afford to buy, are being forced out of the boroughs they grew up in, or in the worst cases, are being made homeless. If nothing is done, people will continue to be driven out of the city and London will cease to be a hub for creativity and entrepreneurship.
David LammyI just adored working in London. It was in London where I first had the idea of making a film.
Colin FarrellI 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 MeadowsTwo 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. ChidambaramThe 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 CoeMy dad is a minister and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English. My mum and dad moved to London when they had my eldest sister. They started a life in London as immigrants, and they built up from there. They're no actors in my family, but there are definitely animated black people in my family.
John BoyegaProfessor Ian McDonald of Guy's hospital in London...has found that, in young men, sugar raises the level of cholesterol in the blood, and especially...tri-glycerides.
John YudkinI don't like flying at the best of times. And as I get older, I like it less and less. I don't much like driving, either. I prefer to be driven. And, when I'm in London, I don't even like walking on the street. I can never get used to looking the right way when I cross the street.
Christopher WalkenI guess a certain contingent of the musicians in London at the beginning of the '70s were fed up with denim and the hippies. And I think we kind of wanted to go somewhere else.
David BowieI 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 LammyThe '60s in London obviously brought about the explosion of music, the Beatles especially, and then the Rolling Stones and other forms of music, and then fashion and photography and films - kitchen-sink dramas we called them at that time, which was our nouvelle vague in Britain, films that talk about real life.
Charlotte RamplingIt is a testament to the fundamental honesty of football that Israel, with nothing to play for, overcame Russia in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The sport has its faults, but this basic trust is the reason Wembley holds 80,000 and could take more and the track and field venue for the London Olympics will be reduced after the event to the same capacity as the home of Wigan Athletic.
Martin SamuelIn writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.
Salman RushdieWell it's a gloomy, rainy old day to be here in London, but it could be worse; I could be in Saudi Arabia where men are men, and women are cattle.
Pat CondellI was in Britain that year [1963] and some music publishing people in Denmark Street in London suggested me to the BBC. So I found myself in front of a British television show, which was a nice surprise.
Gordon LightfootIf 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 RogersI grew up in Los Angeles, and I've made movies all over the world... I've been in New York, Norway, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, London - I've been in all these cities, shooting away in the winter, thinking, 'People who choose to live here are insane.
John LandisA study of the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907 indicates that these panics were the result of the international bankers' operations in London.
Eustace MullinsThis is what I wanted. They tell me that London is the best field in history. I wanted to be part of that. Because everyone will be there it will be a wonderful challenge for me. You can see the best runners, how they look, how they run. For me to beat the best is what counts.
Haile GebrselassieOne my favorite things is to go to the provinces of Russia and see the 18th century wood churches with the onion dome architecture. These humble wonders of incredible imagination of architects that were obviously not living in places like Paris or London, but they've created these amazing churches.
Andre Leon TalleyTheres 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 EatonYouโre not the only one who calls them that; the other Downworlders do the same,โ said Will. โI discovered that fact while investigating the symbol. I must have carried that knife through a hundred Downworld haunts, searching for someone who might recognize it. I offered a reward for information. Eventually the name of the Dark Sisters came to my ears.โ โDownworld?โ Tessa echoed, puzzled. โIs that a place in London?โ โNever mind that,โ said Will. โIโm boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Where was I?
Cassandra ClareOn 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 AlmondThe first time I came to London on my own, I was 15. I was absolutely oblivious to so many things. I had no expectations, no fears. I just came to do a National Youth Theatre season one summer. It was just brilliant.
Gina McKeeI don't think there's any money to be made doing something that's that contemporary without having a spin on it. If there's a London riots film with zombies, that'd have more chance.
Michael Caton-JonesI cut London Boulevard pretty aggressively, but I liked the transitions and the elliptical feel that I got. It's not an exceptionally easy film to follow. You have to know that the paparazzo looks like Mark David Chapman. He hasn't got an expositional sign on him.
William MonahanThe 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 BowlesI'm one of those people, in any country I'm in, if somebody could just put me in a car or a bus, I'll look out the window and say, 'OK, there's the Tower of London, there's Buckingham Palace, there's Big Ben,' and if it all takes about five minutes, perfect. I've seen all of it and I can go home.
Gilbert GottfriedYou 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 WildeWestward, 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 LyttonI take my hat off to the ladies. The amount of grooming-plucking and shaving and all the other things men never have to do. I went down and spent time with transvestites in London in the clubs and all that. Got an insight to that world, and it's a mad world, but they are very warm and very open people. It was a great experience.
Cillian MurphyLetโs 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 YasinThere is something very nice about coming to New York and how everyone smiles - even if they don't mean it. When I go back home to London and say hello to people, they look at me like I'm crazy.
Sophie CooksonGlaswegian ebola patient moved to London's Royal Free Hospital. Not so independent when it matters most are we jocksville?
Katie Hopkins[On writer George Moore:] ... I grew curious about Moore. Yet when at the rehearsal of 'Countess Cathleen' in some dark by-way of London, I was told he was present, I cannot recall any form, only an irritation in the dusty atmosphere.
Susan MitchellI move countries every three or four years. I was born in London, and we lived in Canada. Then we lived in Saudi Arabia until the Gulf War broke out, when we were forced to leave. Then we hop-scotched for a while from Holland back to Canada back to Saudi Arabia. Then there was D-day, so we had to get out again.
Hannah SimoneNew York is more exciting, I guess, than even Paris or London. New York's the center of something; I don't know what, really - the center of a lot of things. With all its problems and chaos and craziness, it's still a great place to live. I can't see myself living anywhere else.
Robert De NiroYou ask why London has to 'stand for' anything. One response is that in fact it always inevitably does. One could say at the moment it stands for a complex mix of multiculturalism and financial power. Interestingly, that is a political mix of progressive and oppressive. What I'm arguing is simply that we should take responsibility for the effects of 'our place' around the world. To take responsibility for our embeddedness. If you don't want to, so be it. It does demand an imaginative engagement with our planetary interdependence and that can be quite challenging.
Doreen Massey