#english

Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French. ↗

— P.G. Wodehouse

#englishmen #french #humor #languages #communication

Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead. ↗

— Wilfred Owen

#death #englishmen #kiss #lips #red

She shrugged another plump shoulder. “I never listened to Porter when he got going.” Ah. At last. The secret to a successful marriage. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon homicide went down.” “I’m lucky that way,” I said. “So are you two square again?” I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him. “Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent triangular tendencies. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

Look, Paul. I appreciate what you’re telling me, but I gave Jake my word. Not to mention the fact, he’d throw my ass in jail if he found out I tried to go around him.” “He wouldn’t, you know,” he said. “Jake’s a pussycat.” Yeah, just a big old saber-toothed tiger. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#english #literature #reading #teachers #beauty

Natalie said, “That detective in charge of the case: is he your Jake?” My mouth dried. The words felt arid and dusty as I forced them out. “Who told you his name?” Like I had to ask. “Lisa pointed him out on television the other night, and I recognized him as one of the cops who was in here the other day.” I opened my mouth, and then shut it. Jake had to know he was fighting a rearguard action. And I was through lying to my own friends and family. “Yeah,” I said. “We used to be friends. A long time ago. He’s married now.” “Bastard,” she said. I shook my head. “Not really. He never lied to me. I just didn’t ask the questions I didn’t want to know the answers to. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

Love is simple, if you allow it to be simple." Julian to Hannah, Take A Chance ↗

— Alison Wong

#chinese #england #english #funny #love

Sparhawk grinned. "If Martel finds out that he's drinking again, he'll reach down his throat and pull his heart out." "Can you actually do that to a man?" "You can if your arm's long enough, and if you know what you're looking for.[...] ↗

— David Eddings

#humor #humor

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist? ↗

— Lynne Truss

#english-language #grammar #humor #lynne-truss #punctuation