Quotes Archive

The British love sex—when other people are doing it. But we also hate sex—when we are doing it ourselves. What, asks, Henry Porter, does this say about our values? Henry Porter, “Too close for our comfort”, The Observer, 13 October 1996 Favorite0

But the English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer. It has a bad surface—self complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm

The Englishman appears to be cold and unemotional because he is really slow… When a disaster comes, the English instinct is to do what can be done first, and to postpone the feeling as long as possible. Hence they are splendid at emergencies… It acts promptly and feels slowly. —E. M. Forster,

Compared to your average Mediterranean male, we British are often condemned as unromantic—but then we don’t have much to work with. While in France they have the bistro, we have the once-French and now very British-sounding caff. Frenchmen get to drink in sophisticated-sounding bars called La Metro (sic) or Le Jardin, while

And yet even in the dark years of this century, Britsex bubbled under, though in an infantile way: … an erotic vocabulary composed entirely of squeals and giggles; even the very words “slap and tickle”, a euphemism for the carnal act no other nation on the planet could have coined… And that

Englishmen are notorious lovers; it only takes the average man ten years to ask the woman he loves for a kiss. Sometimes he proposes to a girl in maybe a year and a half—but not marriage. Peter Cagney, The Book of Wit and Humour, 2596 Good news for British men: there have

It’s especially good that, although British men are notoriously lousy lovers, British women have learnt to expect little more and in fact find earnest male insistence (say, a ten hour Gallic span of attention to the clitoris) only theoretically desirable. Nicholas Lezard, “In Praise of British Women”, GQ, December 1996, p.178 Favorite0

No—but your whole attitude toward emotion is wrong. Emotion has nothing to do with appropriateness. It matters only that it shall be sincere. I happened to feel deeply. I showed it. It doesn’t matter whether I ought to have felt deeply or not. —E. M. Forster, Notes on the English Character Favorite0

And it is this undeveloped heart that is largely responsible for the difficulties of Englishmen abroad. An undeveloped heart—not a cold one. The difference is important, and on it my next note will be based. For it is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He

What Englishwomen lack is the light-footed mobility of those Europeans. Vogue, January 1997, p.89 Favorite0