Popular quotes about London! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 5
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 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 LawrenceFamously in 1936, Oswald Mosley led a march of his British black shirts through a mostly Jewish neighborhood, in the east end of London. What resulted was what they called the "Battle of Cable Street", where Oswald Mosley and his fascists basically got the snot beaten out of them when East London rose up against them and beat them up.
Rachel MaddowPrayer for the city is important. For every city in the world, the city should be prayed for. Particularly for London, it is a strategic city for the UK as well as the world, therefore the future of London is significant to the UK, and also the rest of the world.
Nicky GumbelI was born in London and raised in Rome until I was 4. Then we went back to London, where I went to school.
Naomi CampbellWhen I was flying to Rome, we flew over London; I felt like bursting into tears. It's part of me, so I can't leave London behind for good.
Robert PattinsonI gained a first class degree in Physics at Imperial College London in 1968 and did research in solid state physics, but did not pursue meteorology matters until gaining an M.Sc. in astrophysics from Queen Mary College London in 1981, after which I investigated and attempted to construct theories of solar activity.
Piers CorbynI grew up in London, and that's where I spend most of my time. Unless I have a really good reason not to be, I'll always be in London.
Douglas BoothIn 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 LehmannIn London I'm out and about all the time. I walk everywhere, so people do recognise me and they've probably seen me before so they're not bothered anymore. But I think that's a good thing because if you try and remain mysterious people are surprised when they see you. With me, I think they're just bored of seeing me - but that suits me just fine because I like to live as much of a normal life as I can. That's why I love living in London. People are very respectful of your privacy. If they see you having a coffee in a coffee shop, they're not going to interrupt you.
Gemma ArtertonThe streets, at least in this part of town, seemed impossibly clean in comparison to London. The public telephones were unvandalised. For a London telephone booth to look like that it would have to be guarded around the clock by the SAS.
Clive JamesIt is the duty of all papas and mammas to forbid their children to drink coffee, unless they wish to have little dried-up machines, stunted and old at the age of twenty... once saw a man in London, in Leicester Square, who had been crippled by immoderate indulgence in coffee; he was no longer in any pain, having grown accustomed to his condition, and had cut himself down to five or six cups a day.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-SavarinProfessor 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 YudkinIt's nice to keep in touch - besides, it's the only place in London where you can park a car.
Clement AttleeLike a lot of small press founders I was looking for a way into publishing - as well as a way out of academia. Without moving to London, I couldn't see a way of working for a publishing house whose work I liked. Believe it or not, the simplest way for me to get into publishing was to start my own press.
Andrew LatimerWhen I was a teenager in Iceland people would throw rocks and shout abuse at me because they thought I was weird. I never got that in London no matter what I wore.
BjorkIf I'd stayed on in London and carried on going to literary parties, it would have wrecked me as a writer.
Colin WilsonMy earliest musical memory was getting to watch my dad play drums in a local band. He's a banker by trade, but a drummer at heart. I remember seeing the guitar player do the solo from "Werewolves of London" with his teeth, and that was the moment that had me hooked.
Charlie WorshamGo on writing plays, my boy, One of these days one of these London producers will go into his office and say to his secretary, "Is there a play from Shaw this morning?" and when she says, "No," he will say, "Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish." And that's your chance, my boy.
George Bernard ShawAnd I had known Peter O'Toole before in London. And I'd liked him very much. And the thought of being in a picture with him was very challenging to me. And he was playing the starring role.
Anthony QuinnMy 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 AbbottWell, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.
Tom HooperI've had people ask me in interviews what it's like to have money, but that's not how it is. I have a middle-class life. I have a room in London but not a house, nor a BMW.
Beth DittoI 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 LandisLike many Americans my thoughts and prayers are with the people of London. My deepest sympathies are extended to those who lost a loved one in the recent terror attacks.
Doc HastingsThis London City, with all of its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic an tumult, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One-a huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the making of that brick.
Thomas CarlyleThe day Tarzan opened in London, I sat in a hotel room and discussed the project in detail.
Phil CollinsI'm very moved and very excited. And it just seems to me here are houses and trees and streets that feel so different from New York. I feel very attached to London; I love it.
Lore SegalI'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 BradfordI'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 EminA 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 EmersonI don't live in Ireland, I live in London with my girlfriend; and it's because of the globalization of our planet, it's not necessary to live in Los Angeles to be a successful and any country is just an airplane ride away. If there's a director who wants to meet me or if there's something I have to do, I can just hop on an airplane - the world's small now.
Jonathan Rhys MeyersThe things that prey on my mind in London seem to disappear as soon as I find myself in a different environment. Survival mode kicks in.
Hayley AtwellI 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 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 WarnerBerlin seems like a place of healing to me though: you have both the Holocaust Memorial and Hiroshima Strasse side-by-side there. You have the whole last century libraried and you can see exactly what we did. Now there's lots of artists and musicians moving there because they can't afford the rent in London and New York, and they're having children and making it a gentle place. It seems to be a place of hope now.
Robert MontgomeryThe London streets are paths of loveliness; the very omnibuses look like colored archangels, their laps filled full of little trustful souls.
Evelyn UnderhillIn the '70s, if anything, it was a more interesting time in fashion. It was a time when things were changing, especially in London.
Rei KawakuboWhat are you doing following me around the back streets of London, you little idiot?โ Will demanded, giving her arm a light shake. Cecilyโs eyes narrowed. โThis morning it was cariad (note: Welsh endearment, like โdarlingโ or โloveโ), now itโs idiot.
Cassandra ClareHowever, 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 ClarkeGregory Peck was so charismatic. I saw a woman fall down - fall down! - when she saw him in a restaurant. And Brando. We were in London, and by then he was about 380 pounds. There was a gorgeous waitress, and off he went, in direct competition with me for this young girl's attention, speaking French, making her blush.
Val KilmerI've lived in London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York, and Turin. But New York is my favorite city. It has so much energy, so much toughness.
Lapo ElkannI really see myself as a homegirl. Wales is my first home. London is my second home - I've been there 14 years now.
Katherine JenkinsEngland is my home. London is my home. New York feels like, if I have to spend a year living in an unfamiliar city, this is a pretty lovely one to spend a year in, but I will be going home at the end of it, certainly.
Daniel Radcliffe