screenwriters-from-england

"Miles of cornfields, and ballet in the evening."

"Rosalia is dressed in raven clothes forty years too old for her, so that she seems to be in mourning for her life."

"Jokes are ideally pleasurable. They are an act of assassination without a corpse, a moment of total annihilation that paradoxically makes anything possible."

"A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species."

"People in a temper often say a lot of silly, terrible things they mean."

"Boston is one of the few American cities that regrets the past...Boston's like England. Up to its ears in yellowing photographs."

"Why is it that beautiful women never seem to have curiosity?" "Is it because they know they're classical? With classical things the Lord finished the job. Ordinary ugly people know they're deficient and they go on looking for the pieces."

"Filmmaking has now reached the same stage as sex—it’s all technique and no feeling."

"Russians have always been hugely concerned with ethics and hardly at all with conduct."

"Black and white are the most ravishing colors of all in film."

"It would be unfair to suggest that one of the most characteristic sounds of the English Sunday is the sound of Harold Hobson barking up the wrong tree."

"What's your idea of an ideal date? She screws until four o'clock in the morning, then turns into a pizza."

": You were disparaging my lover. : On the contrary, I was reminiscing about my wife. : It comes to the same thing. : Things mostly do, you know."

": You must be joking. : You would know it if I were."

": Now, the shortest way to a man's heart is humiliation. You soon find out what he's made of."

": So she's used to luxury. Whose fault is that? : It's not a fault if you can afford it. But can you?"

": Supposing someone saw you climbing in? : Who? You're not overlooked. : Who knows? A dallying couple. A passing sheep rapist."

": You can take it from me that Tēa's an engaging little trollop, and she suits me mightily. Mind you, she takes a bit of keeping up with, it's a good thing I'm pretty much of an Olympic sexual athlete. : I suppose these days you're concentrating on the sprints rather than on the long distance stuff. : Not so, dear boy. I'm in the pink of condition. I could copulate for England at any distance. : Well, they do say in Olympic circles, that the point is to take part, rather than to win, so I suppose there's hope for us all."

": You have to be serious if you want to be in love. : You have to be serious about crime if you want to afford to be in love."

"Celebrating Christmas without subscribing to Christianity is like watching the Super Bowl without having watched a single regular-season football game all year. Some people watch the Super Bowl exclusively for the commercials; others watch it for the halftime show."

": You seem to regard marriage as a game, sir. : Not marriage, Inspector. Sex. Sex is the game with marriage the penalty."

"Christmas sits like a black hole on the calendar, and the other holidays implied by "happy holidays"—Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, etc.—are powerless to be drawn in by its force."

": I hear she's a scrubbed blonde with all the sex appeal of chilled Dettol. : (with dignity) There are those who believe that cleanliness is next to sexiness."

"He was very ugly but people can't help the faces they're born with."

"I am here and I am safe and I am sick of it."

"According to her, only a revolution will ever bring true democracy to this country and the sooner revolution comes (she said) the better and even though hundreds of innocents will be slaughtered they will die in a good cause and men must be willing to sacrifice themselves. But that depends I suppose on which men you're thinking of."

"Anything's hard to find if you go around looking for it with your eyes shut."

"Sweetly sings the donkey As he goes to grass He who sings so sweetly Is sure to be an ass."

"We don't ask for life, we have it thrust upon us."

"This isn't such a bad place to be though. I imagine you could get very fond of it from a distance."

"I dreamt about you last night. Fell out of bed twice."

"I can’t stand people who laugh at other people. They’d get a bigger laugh if they laughed at themselves."

"As I was going up Pippin Hill, Pippin Hill was dirty. And there I met a pretty miss, And she dropped me a curtsy. Little miss, pretty miss, Blessings light upon you. If I had half a crown a day, I'd gladly spend it on you."

"Oh! I must take my shoes off. Huh! Hell hath no fury like a woman’s corns, has it?"

"Has difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction. This girl is a liar. Expect Improvement next term."

"Why don't you learn from my mistakes? It takes half your time to learn from your own."

"I’m not frightened of the darkness outside. It’s the darkness inside houses I don’t like."

"My usual self is a very unusual self."

"Women never have young minds. They are born three thousand years old."

"... Poles seem to be as much condemned to a diet of caviar, vodka and the Polka as the English are to rare old port and pheasant."

"There aren't enough secrets to go round anymore. Some spies are having to invent secrets in order to earn a living. I can't help wondering what will happen when redundant spies join the ranks of the unemployed."

"He didn't play with his food anymore till it got cold; instead, down it went like fuel into a furnace keeping the ovens hot, and the energy at boiling point, as Tom hurtled through his life catching up with himself at last."

"In this country there are only two seasons, winter and winter."

"We teach you the pleasure of physical exercise—the team-spirit of games, too, for when you leave school finally you will find that life is a game, sometimes serious, sometimes fun, but a game that must be played with true team-spirit—there is no room for the outsider in life."

"The only consolation I can find in your immediate presence is your ultimate absence."

"I loved the Army as an institution and loathed every single thing it required me to do."

"Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another."

"Rose girl, bearing your posies, What are you coming to sell? Is it yourself or your roses, Or yourself and your roses as well?"

"In becoming the universe God abdicated. He destroyed himself as God. He turned what he had been, his true self, into nullity and thereby forfeited the Godlike qualities which pertained to him. The universe which he has become is also his grave. He has no control in it or over it. God, as God, is dead."

"Nobody minded what you did in bed or what you said about God, a very civilized attitude in 1948."