WatchingTallulah Bankhead on the stage islike watching somebody skating on very thin iceöand the English want to be there when she falls through.

-Campbell, Mrs Patrick ne¤  e Beatrice Rose StellaTanner
Quoted in The Times,13 Dec1968.

The laws of cricket tell of the English love of compromise between a particular freedom and a general orderliness, or legality.

-Cardus, Sir Neville
Quoted in Sir Rupert Hart-Davis Cardus on Cricket (1977).

I remember on one occasion, when she was asked to sing the English version of the touching melody 'The Red-Haired Man's Wife', shereplied,'Iwill sing it for you; but the English words and the air are like a quarrelling man and wife; the Irish melts into the tune, but the English doesn't.'

-Carleton,William
  Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, introduction.

The English are used to suffrage; it istheir panacea for all that goes wrong with them.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  Chartism, ch.9.

I hope we English will long maintain our grand talent pour le silence.

-Carlyle,Thomas
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic,'The Hero as King'.

You must understand,James, thattheir English God isnot so dominant a business institution as ours.

-Carr,J(ames) L(loyd)
  On the US version of God. The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.

'Curiouser and curiouser!'cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

-Dodgson
  Alice's  Adventures in Wonderland, ch.2,'The Pool of  Tears'.

Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thingöturn out your toes as you walköand remember who you are!

-Dodgson
  The Red Queen's advice to  Alice as she begins the chess game. Through the Looking-Glass, ch.2,'The Garden of Live Flowers'.

English policy is to float lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boathook to avoid collisions.

-of Salisbury
  Letter to Lord Lytton, 9 Mar.

Les Anglais, c'est dro"  le quand me"  me comme de¤  gaine, c'est mi-cure¤  , mi-gar c° onnet. The English are funnyand peculiar, half-clergymen and half-little boys.

-Destouches
  Mort a'   cre¤  dit.

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

-Chandler, Raymond
  'The Simple  Art of Murder'. In  Atlantic Monthly, Dec.

It wasn't exactly carelessness; her knowledge of literate English contained such vast areas of desert that she took it for granted that half of what she wrote would be meaningless to her.

-Chandler, Raymond
  On the shortcomings of his ex-secretary. Letter to Erle Stanley Gardner,1  Jul.

They know on the Continent that European football without the English islike a hot dog without themustard.

-Charlton, Sir Bobby (Robert)
  Quoted in Peter Ball and Phil Shaw The Book of Football Quotations (1989). There was at the time a Europeanban inforce against English clubs.

And for ther is so gret diversite In Englissh and in writing of oure tonge, So prey I God that non myswrite the, Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge. And red wherso thow be, or elles songe, That thow be understonde,God I biseche!

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
c.1385  Troilus and Criseyde, bk.5, l.1793^8.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  'The Rolling English Road'.

Canada could have enjoyed: English government, French culture, And American know-how. Instead it ended up with: English know-how, French government, And American culture.

-Colombo,John Robert
  'O Canada', collected in  Al Purdy (ed)  The New Romans (1968).

Their talk was endless, compulsive, and indulgent, sometimes sounding like the remains of the English language after having been hashed over by nuclear war survivors for a few hundred years.

-Coupland, Douglas
Generation X,'It Can't Last'.

I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned.

-Crisp, Quentin
  The Naked Civil Servant, ch.4.

It is as if Homer not only chronicled the siege of Troy, but conducted the siege as well. As if Shakespeare set his play writing aside to lead the English against the Armada.

-Cuomo, Mario Matthew
  Tribute to Lincoln's literary and political genius. In the New York Times,18 Nov.

L |' si vedra'   la superbia ch'asseta, che fa lo Scotto e l'Inghilese folle, s |' che non puo'   soffrir dentro a sua meta. There shall you see the pride which causes thirst, which makes the Scots and the English mad, so that they cannot remain within their boundaries.

-Dante Alighieri originally Durante
c.1320  Divina Commedia,'Paradiso', canto1, l.121^3.