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For over ten years I always had, but I don't speak English.
Author:
Zhang Yimou
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Ang Lee was educated in the West and his English is good.
Author:
Zhang Yimou
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It even has the same phraseology as the English orders of knighthood, companions and this sort of thing.
Author:
George Woodcock
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It's like there are all these languages available, especially in terms of image. Why confine yourself to only English? There's all these languages and possibilities and concepts to speak or communicate with.
Author:
William Wiley
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In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent four very miserable years as a colonial at an English school.
Author:
Patrick White
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We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Author:
Booker Washington
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Others may use the ocean as their road; Only the English make it their abode.
Author:
Edmund Waller
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Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.
Author:
Alice Walker
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The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.
Author:
Derek Walcott
-
It's difficult for me to feel that a solid page without the breakups of paragraphs can be interesting. I break mine up perhaps sooner than I should in terms of the usage of the English language.
Author:
A. Vogt
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More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor.
Author:
John Vessey, Jr.
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I was a terrible English student.
Author:
Leon Uris
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We were very kindly received by the English merchants to whom my companion had letters, and we set ourselves to learn what was the real state of things in Mexico.
Author:
Edward Tylor
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We took Beowulf, the epic poem in Old English, and put it right together with John Gardner's contemporary retelling. If you bring it into today, we really feel that it has something very fresh to say now.
Author:
Julie Taymor
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Those were the days, you know. It's an English thing; as soon as it's gets to 6 pm, you have to go and have a drink. We used to stick to that religiously.
Author:
Andy Taylor
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Nowadays, anyone who cannot speak English and is incapable of using the Internet is regarded as backward.
Author:
Al Talal
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Intended to serve as an introduction to both the linguistic and also the practical study of spoken English.
Author:
Henry Sweet
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The English press treated the world premiere of my first talking picture as a major event.
Author:
Gloria Swanson
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When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it.
Author:
Billy Sunday
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I'd forgotten I'd done the anime called Spirited Away, the English version of a Japanese film.
Author:
David Stiers
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Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
Author:
Dorothy Sayers
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The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.
Author:
Dorothy Sayers
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Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.
Author:
Marilyn Savant
-
I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer.
Author:
Fred Savage
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These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages.
Author:
Edward Sapir
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I had one companion. He was a teacher from the Ukraine who spoke English so we could communicate a bit. I learnt a few Russian words, but it was hard to concentrate.
Author:
Mathias Rust
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What I appreciated was the fact that the script delved into how Australians were - and still are - condescended to by the English.
Author:
Geoffrey Rush
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The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
Author:
Jean Rousseau
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The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.
Author:
Jean Rousseau
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I read the greens in Spanish, but putt in English.
Author:
Chi Rodriguez
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Everything depends on whether we have for opponents those French tricksters or those daring rascals, the English. I prefer the English. Frequently their daring can only be described as stupidity. In their eyes it may be pluck and daring.
Author:
Manfred Richthofen
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The English had hit upon a splendid joke. They intended to catch me or to bring me down.
Author:
Manfred Richthofen
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The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master.
Author:
Samuel Richardson
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'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
Author:
Willard Quine
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Among pacifists it was above all the English who always insisted on the importance of disarmament. They said that the man in the street would not understand the kind of pacifism that neglected to demand immediate restriction of armaments.
Author:
Ludwig Quidde
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I think maybe the English don't want to try something and look stupid, because they are a bit reserved.
Author:
Alain Prost
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Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.
Author:
Terry Prachett
-
In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
Author:
Alan Perlis
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Come English Settlement, I had it in my head that I didn't want to tour.
Author:
Andy Partridge
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Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house.
Author:
James Otis
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Find a priest who understands English and doesn't look like Rasputin.
Author:
Aristotle Onassis
-
You see how Spanish, Italians, Portuguese play football. I don't say they are perfect, I say English football has a few things to learn from them in the same way they have a lot of things to learn from English football.
Author:
Jose Mourinho
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I feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking football. But I also have things to give them.
Author:
Jose Mourinho
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Well, I am from India and I wanted to make films in English for the international market in India. So that was really the main thing, and then of course economically it was cheaper to make films in India.
Author:
Ismail Merchant
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The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it.
Author:
Scott McNealy
-
Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.
Author:
John McGahern
-
They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York.
Author:
Roddy McDowall
-
The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.
Author:
Karl Marx
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If you want to be happy, live discreetly. Does that make sense in English?
Author:
Olivier Martinez
-
There are some sounds that English singers find quite difficult to manipulate.
Author:
Neville Marriner
-
If you see the Sopranos, you're not going to be speaking in the Shakespearean English.
Author:
Lucy Liu
-
I haven't spoken English with native speakers in several months. I've been speaking Arabic.
Author:
John Lindh
-
Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.
Author:
Gyorgy Ligeti
-
Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.
Author:
Jonathan Lethem
-
I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh.
Author:
Mario Lemieux
-
My heritage is English, so I'm proud to be back here.
Author:
Nicholas Lea
-
We shall never be understood or respected by the English until we carry our individuality to extremes, and by asserting our independence, become of sufficient consequence in their eyes to merit a closer study than they have hitherto accorded us.
Author:
Henry Lawson
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He is ready, if the occasion presents itself, to throw the whole English population in the St. Lawrence.
Author:
Wilfrid Laurier
-
You know, I do speak the Queens English. It's just the wrong Queens that's all. It's over the 59th Street Bridge. It's not over the Atlantic Ocean.
Author:
Cyndi Lauper
-
If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.
Author:
Doug Larson
-
I never had to learn English, French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot.
Author:
Karl Lagerfeld
-
A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime.
Author:
Chiaki Kuriyama
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I studied voice for three months to get rid of my English accent. I changed my hair to blonde. I knew I could be sexy if I had to.
Author:
Deborah Kerr
-
The funniest line in English is "Get it?" When you say that, everyone chortles.
Author:
Garrison Keillor
-
We are Bayern Munich and English teams always have trouble as soon as they leave the island.
Author:
Oliver Kahn
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Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
Author:
James Joyce
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Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Author:
Henry James
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English should be our official language. Reading and speaking English are requirements to become a citizen.
Author:
Ernest Istook
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My early influences were the Shadows, who were an English instrumental band. They basically got me into playing and later on I got into blues and jazz players. I liked Clapton when he was with John Mayall. I really liked that period.
Author:
Tony Iommi
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The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence, and happily they were able to formulate the inalienable truths set forth in the Declaration.
Author:
Samuel Huntington
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There is abundant proof that the opening of our ports always tends to raise the price of foreign corn to the price in the English market, and not to sink the price of British corn to the price in the continental market.
Author:
Joseph Hume
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If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless.
Author:
John Hume
-
All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.
Author:
Gordie Howe
-
By the by, if the English race had done nothing else, yet if they left the world the notion of a gentleman, they would have done a great service to mankind.
Author:
Gerard Hopkins
-
I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.
Author:
Roald Hoffmann
-
For the version of this CD released in Japan, a translation of the English lyrics is included, but there are lots of places where meanings are lost in the process of translation.
Author:
Utada Hikaru
-
The thing is, in English I'm able to write the lyrics as I'm making the song, once I'm done with the melody.
Author:
Utada Hikaru
-
Would it be possible to stand still on one spot more majestically - while simulating a triumphant march forward - than it is done by the two English Houses of Parliament?
Author:
Alexander Herzen
-
The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing.
Author:
Thomas Hearne
-
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Author:
Lafcadio Hearn
-
In 1763 the English were the most powerful nation in the world.
Author:
Albert Hart
-
It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also.
Author:
Townsend Harris
-
The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.
Author:
Margaret Halsey
-
At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did.
Author:
Otto Hahn
-
Someone's just told me the English are still trying to take over the United States - is that true?
Author:
Steve Guttenberg
-
Me fail english? Thats unpossible.
Author:
Matt Groening
-
First of all, there was a volcano of words, an eruption of words that Shakespeare had never used before that had never been used in the English language before. It's astonishing. It pours out of him.
Author:
Stephen Greenblatt
-
The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'.
Author:
Maxim Gorky
-
French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.
Author:
Alma Gluck
-
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
Author:
Edward Gibbon
-
Every German child learns to speak English in school.
Author:
Cornelia Funke
-
And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.
Author:
Cornelia Funke
-
Myspace alone has just over 80 million users and ranks as the sixth most popular English language website and the eighth most popular site in the world.
Author:
Mike Fitzpatrick
-
Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too.
Author:
Robert Fitzgerald
-
Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!
Author:
Juan Fangio
-
Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited.
Author:
Steve Earle
-
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.
Author:
Kate DiCamillo
-
One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.
Author:
Anita Diament
-
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
Author:
Clarence Darrow
-
Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.
Author:
Cyril Cusack
-
I must confess, my Spanish is not so good - except I read a little, so I started with the English but then determined that it would have to be in Spanish.
Author:
George Crumb
-
In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.
Author:
Bill Condon
-
The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.
Author:
John Cleese
-
Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone.
Author:
John Clayton
-
The English like eccentrics. They just don't like them living next door.
Author:
Julian Clary
-
Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.
Author:
Sandra Cisneros
-
I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'.
Author:
Cher
-
The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.
Author:
Raymond Chandler
-
"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
Author:
George Carlin
-
English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.
Author:
Michael Caine
-
My favorite pudding is good old English apple pie.
Author:
Jeremy Bulloch
-
Like, What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside?
Author:
Jackson Browne
-
Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
Author:
Jimmy Breslin
-
The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment.
Author:
Edward Bond
-
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
Author:
Ambrose Bierce
-
I am not 100% English, I am actually part Italian and even part Hungarian. Therefore I feel very much part of Europe both in my upbringing and outlook.
Author:
Bruce Bennett
-
Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
Author:
Robert Benchley
-
I'd been trying for a while to get parts that weren't just the English bad guy, so it was quite refreshing to be playing someone who was a compassionate, decent guy.
Author:
Sean Bean
-
I'm English. Our dentistry is not world famous.
Author:
Christian Bale
-
It was always said that the big distinction between the French and the English is that the English are intelligent and the French are intellectual.
Author:
Kenneth Baker
-
The themes Poe used were universal and timeless. As long as the English language exists at all, we will be able to appreciate what he did. It will not age! It will not become dated!
Author:
John Astin
-
I am just like 99% of my friends in France, who say on their resume they can speak fluent English. In reality, they can't even count up to three.
Author:
Greg Akcelrod
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