At the age of nine, I simultaneously fell in love with two Dutch sisters because they seemed so beautifully strange, and their clothes were mysterious and alluring - added to which, they could not speak a word of English. More than anything, I wanted...
In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge ...
As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality.
In our generation, everybody told us that it's really important and it's nice to be able to speak a lot of languages. It's an art, too. It really impresses me, people who speak, like, seven languages. I admire them so much, so I began with English, a...
School was rough for me. I was a good student in middle school, but high school wasn't so fun. I still pulled through, though! I excelled in art, fashion, history and English literature - anything creative. Math and science I struggled a bit more in.
Even though I loved to write, I never liked English lit. class very much. I think it ruins books when you dissect them too much. I liked my art classes best.
It's really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry," said Angus Lordie. "In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find.
Because, as any English-speaking tourist will tell you, if you speak slow enough, loud enough, and maintain good eye contact, eventually they’ll understand.
Why no for two deer, but an for two monkeys? Brother Quang says no one knows. So much for rules! Whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake.
If men were equal in America, all these Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves.
Difficult for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. Except for Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, who speak that way anyway.
The aim I have set before me in this book is to give back to English readers the understanding of and delight in this great poet which thrilled his contemporaries and early successors.
The reason why the continental European is, to the Englishman or American, so surprisingly ignorant of the Bible, is that the authorized English version is a great work of literary art, and the continental versions are comparatively artless.
Nowhere is the English genius of domesticity more notably evident than in the festival of afternoon tea. The [...] chink of cups and the saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.
An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.
Every time I eat an English muffin I feel like I become more grammatically correct, more refined, more cultured, and an all-around gentleman.
We made love like a slice of French toast trying to act like an English muffin.
Everybody knows love is a universal language, but not many people know it only has 22 letters. Love can say more with 22 letters than English can with 26.
Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance.
He was thirty-six years old, and six foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time.
I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.
