The American audiences are more vocal and enthusiastic. British audiences tend to sit back a little more.
I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
The positive news is that the British economy is continuing to grow and is creating jobs. And it is positive news too that at a time of real international instability we are a safe haven in the storm.
This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.
I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the ‘Harry Potter’ books.
The most conservative man in this world is the British trade unionist when you want to change him.
In recent times, European nations, with the use of gunpowder and other technical improvements in warfare, controlled practically the whole world. One, the British Empire, brought under one government a quarter of the earth and its inhabitants.
One of the most beautiful things about Britain, apart from the NHS and the free education, is the British Army.
You know, the taxing authority of the United States is our most powerful weapon. You know, the reason we separated from England was because the British were using it abusively.
Traditional British desserts with lots of custard are my biggest weakness – I particularly love the puds at St. John restaurant in East London.
In Great Britain the price of food is at a higher level than in any other country, and consequently, the British artisan labours at a disadvantage in proportion to the higher rate of his food.
We’ve always had a pretty competitive and pretty ferocious battle with British Airways… It’s lasted now about 14 years, and we’re very pleased to have survived it.
There is sort of a hobbit-like element to a lot of British people. They don’t want to be told something until they have worked it out for themselves.
Marriage commissioners who choose not to marry homosexuals are being fired. A Knights of Columbus chapter in British Columbia is in court because it chooses not allow a lesbian group to use its facility for marriage ceremonies. The list goes on.
You know, when I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires.
I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain’s Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school.
Those Frenchies may know their pastry, but you can’t beat a bit of British cheese.
The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return. So we will have time for a proper, reasoned debate. At the end of that debate you, the British people, will decide.
No, I’m not rich. I had a tax problem in this country, curiously enough, and my accountant said the British government was patently wrong in taxing me, and they were, but we couldn’t persuade them and it cost me everything I had.
Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher’s name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.
I’m a British intern going in. I’m hoping that John will just kind of tackle it from who this person is and what she’s about rather than trying to go in on her culture. We need to move a step forward than that.
The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture.
Such a prostitution of judicial power can never occur again under the shadow of the British law, for no jury within the wide circle of the empire would submit to such an infraction of their privilege, even if a judge could be found daring enough to attempt it.
The defeat of the Americans in Canada and the advantages gained by the British arms in the Jerseys, and indeed for some months in every other quarter, gave to the royal cause an air of triumph.
What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.
There’s this assumption that every British actor, they can ride horses. Definitely not!
If I go anywhere where there are people who vaguely look like me, there is always that feeling of, ‘Actually I do look quite similar to everyone else.’ At moments like that, I become very, very British. My accent gets more clipped, and I stride around as if I’ve got an empire.
I guess the most surprising discovery was how long Gandhi remained loyal to the ideal of the British Empire, even in India.
On banks, I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies, while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved.
Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.
If you read the ‘Daily Mail,’ you would imagine that the British middle classes lead lives of unremitting misery.
I love Adele. Adele is my favorite artist. She’s British. She’s funny. She’s just an amazing, incredible voice, and I love to sing as well.
The British have a remarkable talent for keeping calm, even when there is no crisis.
I do consider myself British. I have very strong feelings about my British heritage.
Seattle is a liberal city, its politics not so much blue (in the American, not the British, sense) as deep ultramarine, and its manners are studiously polite.
The British playwright Nina Raine is one of her generation’s most promising talents.
I’ve done my share of period stuff. I’m not sure why, but people say I have a period face. The bread and butter of British TV is Jane Austen adaptations and bridges and bonnets and boats and horses.
British period drama is always seen as kind of perfect and beautiful and lovely, but I don’t think subcultures have been shone a light on like ‘Peaky Blinders’ has done.
I love the humour of the British and I love the countryside.
Something is happening to Britain and the British. Or has happened. We are said to be passing through a transition, or a turning point, or a transformation; nobody is quite sure which.
I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.
When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It’s kind of a Warhol thing.
British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.
I’m quite British; I’ve got big, flat feet, and I can’t wear heels. I’ve got very, very pale Celtic skin, so my legs are always a frightening blue color. So when you take out clothes that reveal your legs, shoes that have any kind of heel, no shop will actually take my money.
However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbours, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account.
The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable.
British comedy fans go crazy.
I think I must be the only British actor who’s played both Stalin and Trotsky. I need to play Lenin so I can make it a triptych.
Contrast that with the call of the Liberal Democrats in April, when they were prepared to call upon the British people to participate in a 24-hour strike. It shows how far to the right the Labour Party’s gone.
My great-great-aunt was a terrorist. I’m not talking about the sense in which the pacifist Mahatma Gandhi was branded a terrorist by the British parliament in 1932: Pritilata Waddedar was an active participant in armed struggle against the British state. She supplied explosives. She fired a gun. And I’m proud of it.
There is no cannibalism in the British navy, absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount.
There’s definitely a pattern of great British shows that get reinvented in America and do really well here, but I think ‘Torchwood’ is a bit different. It’s more of a hybrid that doesn’t exist as a reinvention.
American science is much more organized, much more hierarchical than British science has been.
I wanted to work with Mike Leigh. I had my list of British people I wanted to work with, and I wanted to work with David Lynch and Woody Allen.
The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.
