“Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.”

— Dodie Smith, book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England." by Dodie Smith?

Dodie Smith49

English novelist and playwright 1896–1990

Claud Cockburn (1904–1981) Irish journalist

Page 237
A Discord of Trumpets (1956)

““Mustn’t grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. "I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. "I’m fairly keen" was not American. Americans were showoffs — it was part of our innocence — we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.”

Paul Theroux book The Kingdom by the Sea

The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain, ch. 1 (1983).

“Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“Well, this is a strange reversal of the situation. The English are at loggerheads with the Americans. The Lansdowne Clique has coalesced with the Labour Party to obtain a swift acceptable peace for Germany. It seems that Lloyd George put pressure on him to this end. On the other hand we know that the Paris Senate has said that it will not come to the conference table to sue for peace but pursue the war with every means in its power. After your report I'll read you a confidential letter I have received from an agent in Holland…The agent…points to a possibility of coming to terms with England, which is obviously perturbed by American numerical superiority, and thinks we should have done better not to make peace overtures to America but to England…An agreement with England, to include a treaty with Japan to fling the Americans out of Europe. A European Monroe doctrine therefore to which I outlined to Hintze at Spa as the policy to be followed in future.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Georg Alexander von Müller's diary entry (29 October 1918), quoted in Georg Alexander von Müller, The Kaiser and His Court (London: Macdonald, 1961), pp. 416-417
1910s

“Working days in England are not the same as working days in foreign ports, because working days in England, by the custom and habits of the English, if not by their law, do not include Sundays.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Nielsen v. Wait (1885), L. R. 16 Q. B. 71.

“To watch people on their phones in a crowd is to notice how disconnected they seem; how unprepared for solitude they seem. Neurosis, yes. Novelty is the American neurosis.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

“By the early seventies I had become an Englishman — that is to say, I hated England just as much as half my compatriots seemed to do.”

Nick Hornby Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch (1992)

“The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 162

“England is very, very important to me, because in my family the English could do no wrong. When my father picked a mistress, it was always an English girl: if he made her pregnant, she could be shipped back to England and he would not be held responsible. It never happened, but I've made a lot of work called The English Can Do No Wrong.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Louise Bourgeois: a web of emotions, 2010

“Stop and take your time to notice things and make those things you notice matter.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

“Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Dodie Smith49

Related quotes

Related topics