When I came back from Bolivia, my Spanish was in some ways as good as my English. I am rusty today. But I am comfortable talking in Spanish. I am not flawless or fluent, but I am comfortable. It takes me a day or two speaking a lot of Spanish to get ...
Math just wasn't my favorite. I didn't get how important math is and how it relates to real life. That's why I think I was turned off to it. Once I got down arithmetic and a little bit of algebra, I think I checked out. As I've gotten older, I think ...
I do believe that our modern English usage has become way too clipped and austere. I have been reading excerpts from the journals of 18th-century seafarers lately, and even the lowliest press-ganged deck-swabber turns a finer phrase than I do most da...
One of the problems with any kind of talking about the media landscape is that we've just been through an unusually stable period in which, for fifty years, English language media was centered in three cities - London, New York, and Los Angeles - aro...
My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slow...
I do revel slightly in the fact that I am what I am - an English, middle-class, public-school-educated bloke. There is a reputation with that of being slightly stiff, but whoever gets to know me will see some other element - whether it be vulnerable ...
I'd rather be thought as an international actress rather than a French one. Because I don't know what's coming up for me, my ambition is not to be typecast. So I'm working on my English accent, as well as my American one. I don't want to be like 'Oka...
I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anythin...
People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 ...
The history of prescriptions about English ... is in part a history of bogus rules, superstitions, half-baked logic, groaningly unhelpful lists, baffling abstract statements, false classifications, contemptuous insiderism and educational malfeasance....
I'm reasonably easygoing. Messing up my lines or making a fool of myself is where you find my fears. Like a lot of English people, I'm prey to embarrassment - the dread that everyone's sort of sniggering at you, that you're going to look like an idio...
Although I feel very French, a part of my heart is in the States. When my brother and I arrived, we didn't really speak any English, and when we left, that's all we spoke when we played together. It was just a beautiful place to grow up.
I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.
We speak, and write, in one of the most diverse, gloriously ecumenical tongues on the planet. In English, there is a word or phrase for pretty much anything we want to say, and if there isn't, we make it up, and it is welcomed into the family. We can...
Natalia: I am sorry to bother you, but I could not tell no one else. I do not know no other woman who gives her body so frequently... Oh! I am sorry, my English. Have I offended you? Sally: Oh, no, not at all.
Spike: [English version] Excuse me Jett, you said three, not four. Jett: Disinformation is sometimes required for enemies as well as allies. Spike: Don't give me that art of war crap, [pointing to the thief] Spike: and you, you take too long to take ...
Pearline: Can't you understand what he's saying? Ghost Dog: No, I don't understand him. I don't speak French, only English. I never understand a word he says. Pearline: And that's your best friend? Ghost Dog: Yeah.
Master SGT. Wilhelm: Who are you? British, American? What? Lt. Aldo Raine: We're American! What're you? Master SGT. Wilhelm: I'm a German, you idiot! Lt. Aldo Raine: You speak English pretty good for a German. Master SGT. Wilhelm: I agree.
The Bride: [in Japanese] Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. However, leave the limbs you've lost. They belong to me now. [in English] The Bride: Except you, Sofie! You stay right where you are!
Billy Ray: [posing as "Nenge Mboko," an exchange student from Cameroon] Merry New Year! Beeks: That's "happy." In this country we say "Happy New Year." Billy Ray: Oh, ho, ho, thank you for correcting my English which stinks!
[last lines] [using English subtitles] Homer, the aged poet: [in German] Tell me of the men, women, and children who will look for me - me, their storyteller, their bard, their choirmaster - because they need me more than anything in the world. Homer...
