Sean Lock Quotes

You think the Welsh are friendly, but the Irish are fabulous.

It was an American who said that while a Frenchman's truth was akin to a straight line, a Welshman's truth was more in the nature of a curve, and it is a fact that Welsh affairs are entangled always in parabola, double-meaning and implication. This makes for a web-like interest.

Children in the abstract, had never appealed to me. They seemed to be loud creatures, often dripping some form of goo.

HELL: A place where the police are German, the motorists French and the cooks English.

Everybody in the states is so relaxed, and everybody in Japan is so uptight.

I have met charming people, lots who would be charming if they hadn't got a complex about the British and everyone has pleasant and cheerful manners and I like most of the American voices. On the other hand I don't believe they have any God and their hats are frightful. On balance I prefer the Arabs.

Oh, the Germans classify, but the French arrange.

In the beginning, I was put off by the harshness of German. Someone would order a piece of cake, and it sounded as if it were an actual order, like, "Cut the cake and lie facedown in that ditch between the cobbler and the little girl."

The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one.

It perhaps might be said--if any one dared--that the most worthless literature of the world has been that which has been written by the men of one nation concerning the men of another.

I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans.

If I were going to war I would want to be alongside an Englishman not a Frenchman. The Frenchman would think too much.

The English love for privacy is proverbial, and has not been exaggerated. A stranger who strikes up a conversation is looked upon with suspicion - unless he happens to be an American, when his ignorance of good manners is indulged.

Canadians are more polite when they are being rude than Americans are when they are being friendly.

I learned to stop being English about things like love. If you make a film in England about love, it's hugely complicated. It's all about saying what the weather is like, and you're secretly telling someone you love them. You know what the English are like; they're very repressed people. You don't get that in India. India is incredibly un-cynical about love. It's a not a complicated thing. It's me, you, love. Let's go.

Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards and we will go to great lengths to prove it.

The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world

In general, Americans like to be entertained. Canadians seem more suspicious of it.

The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.

Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it.

The Welsh are not like any other people in Britain, and they know how separate they are. They are the Celts, the tough little wine-dark race who were the original possessors of the island, who never mixed with the invaders coming later from the east, but were slowly driven into the western mountains.

An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman were invited to a Christmas party. The Englishman brought a bag of tinsel, the Scotsman brought a bag of holly and they asked the Irishman: "What have you brought?" He said: "I brought a pair of knickers." They asked: "What has that got to do with Christmas?" He said "They're Carol's."

Do you know why I left America, Lidewij? So that I would never again have to encounter Americans." "But you are an American." "Incurably so, it seems.

But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think.