#english

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#french #predisposed #pride #vanity

American professional athletes are bilingual; they speak English and profanity. ↗

— Gordie Howe

#athletes #bilingual #english #profanity #professional

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

I spent the period reading the first novel assigned for English. And wow. If I hadn't realized I was in France yet, I do now. Because Like Water for Chocolate has sex in it. LOTS of sex. ↗

— Stephanie Perkins

#english

I know your head aches. I know you're tired. I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window. But think what you're trying to accomplish - just think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language; it's the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative and musical mixtures of sounds. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#language #imagination

From this point on in our lives, she had whispered to him earlier, we will either find or lose our souls. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #michael-ondaatje #romance #the-english-patient #war