Kenneth Baker Quotes

Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.

I haven't met everyone from all different cultures, but I do know Aussies are very tough.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.

It is well known that German intellectuals are reluctant to agree with French intellectuals and the French are reluctant to agree with the German.

I am bad at cultural generalizations but I would venture to say that by a wide margin there is less hypocrisy about sex in France than in America.

It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms.

I went to a British Council event a while back and there were lots of German professors of literature. About half of them were convinced I had a German sense of humour and the other half were sure it was British. They are probably still arguing about it now.

I understand that Italy could have been associated with the idea of an undisciplined country in the past.

Who can doubt that between the English and the French, between the Scotch and the Irish, there are differences of character which have profoundly affected and still affect the course of history?

An Englishmen thinks seated; a Frenchmen standing; an American pacing, an Irishman, afterwards.

Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are.

There's just kind of a sweetness about Canadians. Americans are a little more pushy, I mean, in a way that I enjoy - they're basically pushy because of their enthusiasm - we're a lot clumsier than other people.

I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.

I always thought of myself as more American than Americans when I was living in Germany, because I always had this attitude of can-do, and if you're successful, you can show it, which is a very un-German thing, you know.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Threats are more readily perceived from culturally dissimilar powers than culturally similar ones.

The French are a feminine race, not manly like the Anglo-Saxons or Teutons.

I find that the hardest work in the world... is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling.

I never thought fashion was the job for me, because I'm Japanese. Clothes! That was a European, society thing.

I've been going through immigration all my life, and I've been stopped for traffic violations by cops, and they get much more curious about me than the regular guy. The moment they hear my accent, things get a little deeper.

One of the maddening things about being a foreigner in France is that hardly anyone in the rest of the world knows what's really happening here. They think Paris is a socialist museum where people are exceptionally good at eating small bits of chocolate and tying scarves.

When I came to Spain, people thought I would fly home again after the holidays, stay up all night celebrating, and would have no discipline. That may be true of other players, but it's not my way.

I think Danish girls might be a little more chill - at least, that's what I've heard from people who've also dated American girls.

There aren't a lot of Portuguese models, so everyone always expects me to be Brazilian because of my features, sometimes even American, as I have a slight American accent when I speak English.