Sam Riley Quotes

I am a Londoner and I love my home. There are many things about this country which drive me crazy, but when I am in America, I feel wrong there.

If I were bombing with my jokes in English, I would go back to France. Maybe do that mime thing.

It's fascinating when you're from another place, but you don't speak the language.

I don't know if my sense of humor goes over Americans' heads.

I love New York, but I have to admit that I feel very English, and I do miss that sense of history that you have everywhere in Britain.

I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up.

When I was in Taiwan, we were there for about 8 months, and I was 11 at the time, so it was definitely a culture shock. But it was a really interesting time to be there. I didn't entirely realize how different it is from the States. I just accepted it because I was there and my parents needed to be there.

L.A. hasn't changed me that much - I've not forgotten where I'm from, you know. And I need to find a haggis, but no-one seems to sell them over here.

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

Sometimes Americans don't quite get my sense of humor. My good ol' British sarcasm seems to go over their heads.

I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation.

I don't really have that much contact with Americans. I mean, I see the oddest things on the Internet, I suppose. And I've got a couple of American friends, but they are Anglophiles anyway because they've decided to come live here.

Moving to France is not the hard part. Living here is more difficult. Of course there are many benefits but it's not always easy especially if you don't speak the language.

I went back to Hong Kong for the first time in 17 years and I was culture shocked in Hong Kong.

When I moved from Canada to Korea, I experienced a massive culture shock. I wasn't familiar with Korean culture at all and was very surprised at the hierarchical elements of Korean culture. However, at the time I was determined to succeed so I became a sponge and just soaked in everything I could.

It was totally different. I am living in Sao Paulo and then I'm in Ukraine living in a small city called Donetsk. There's the weather, the language. I went there with my family. That helped a little bit and I ended up staying there for five-and-a-half years. It was important there that I had so many Brazilian players.

It took me a while to figure out the U.S. sense of humor, a lot of trial and error. I would write down jokes to casually tell my American friend over Skype to see which ones he'd laugh at.

When I was small, I thought I was just cooler than my mom because of how foreign she is. She's really foreign. You'd think it would kill her to get store-bought snacks, she's that foreign.

I do miss things about Britain. I think there was a misconception, there definitely was, that I left because of bad press, and being pilloried. I left Britain because I fell in love with someone who lived in Switzerland - that was the main thing.

I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up. I love Britain, I lived there for nine years doing shows and things, but I don't know what a British sensibility is. I'd like to have someone tell me what an American sensibility is.

My whole life, I've been getting used to adapting. There are small differences, but culturally, the States and the U.K. are very close.

Having grown up in different countries - Jamaica, Italy, U.K. - I catch the accents quite easily. In the U.S., they don't know where I am from!

Everything has changed since I came to China.

I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.

I still remember my days in Komarock estate, the days when it was all normal, and even though I am born and bred in Belgium, I could easily fit in and feel like any other Kenyan.