Will Cotton Quotes

One notable feature is that English doesn't have much of a system for expressing relative social status.

Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it.

Language does not make one an elite.

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It's fine to be a pop star. 'Oh, it's great, lots of fun, aren't they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!'

In my position, I could be a debutante. But we only got to this position by being a politically active family.

Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.

A Plowman on his knees is higher than a Gentleman on his legs.

Hollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I've ever experienced. It's made more difficult by the fact that it's constantly changing. You never know what class you belong to unless you're one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.

My wife thinks I have an obsession with social class. So I guess I have an obsession with social class. It probably stems from feeling like an outcast.

At first, I didn't hang out with celebrity kids. That wasn't the way I was brought up. I went to a run-of-the-mill Catholic primary school when we first moved to L.A. But then I went to a high school where there were lots of 'industry' children. Those weren't my best friends and I've never set out to make myself a part of that scene.

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

And understand: class differences will not save you.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter.

There isn't much discussion of ruling class in America even in Boston, probably one of the most class-conscious cities in the country?

English people are so trapped in this class paradigm.

I think you could ask 10 English people the same question about class and get a very different answer.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?

Humans have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in status.