All my life, I have loved balloons - all balloons - the heavy English sort, immense and round, that have to be pushed about, and the gay, light, gas-filled French ones that soar into the air the moment you let go of them.
My parents didn't speak English. They learned it little by little. They realized that education was the ticket to a better future in their own rudimentary way. They kept the house clean, kept us on the straight and narrow, and none of us ever got into trouble with the law.
I'm not a salsa singer who wants to sing in English, and I'm not this American kid who wants to sing Spanish.
When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English.
The Social-Democratic Federation took part in all the political and economic struggles of the English working class; it took pains to bring Socialist views home to them, not only through agitation and propaganda, but also by actions.
Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German.
I think I've committed the one really bad English crime, which is I've risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I'm claiming that I'm an artist of some kind.
Yes, for my undergrad I majored in Criminal Justice and minored in Political Science and English.
Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.
Religion is compulsory in English schools, you know.
I must confess, my Spanish is not so good - except I read a little, so I started with the English but then determined that it would have to be in Spanish.
The English press, are so nosy, and the English seem to love that eavesdropping.
And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name.
Afghanistan's story, backwards or sideways, is not confined to the Americans or the English.
Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.
When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.
I remember my jaw would hurt because I wasn't used to speaking English all the time. Like how, even if you exercise, you'll play kickball one day, and then you're like, 'Wait, I run, but new places are hurting because I don't use my muscles this way.' My mouth was not used to making these sounds.
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
With the requests of some he complied, and has published a discourse, delivered before the Society for recovering drowned persons, which may be justly pronounced one of the most beautiful and interesting sermons in the English language.
Instead of this confusion, we need the unifying force of an official language, English, which is the language of success in America.
Who can doubt that between the English and the French, between the Scotch and the Irish, there are differences of character which have profoundly affected and still affect the course of history?
A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime.
It was always said that the big distinction between the French and the English is that the English are intelligent and the French are intellectual.
There was always a lot of American music in England until, obviously when the Beatles came around, then there was a shift towards English music, but before then American music was the main thing.
My children are English, and both of their mothers were English.
I avoid the public because the English public is too aggressive these days for me.
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
English football is in a bad way because the foreign players here are so good, so dominant.
A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire.
As a Scot, representing a Scottish constituency for almost the past 25 years, I do not harbour an overweening ambition to pronounce on each and every matter exclusively English.
An agent once told me that if I would lose my English accent, I would never stop working in America.
You know, nobody eats in England. Three or four pints of English beer a night fills you. I can't say I'm very impressed with the food in America. it's all sort of bland. Like turkey sandwiches.
In my home country, there was a little shop with old books, but it was really in the countryside. You couldn't find English books. I found this very avant-garde American art book that had information about Georgia O'Keeffe. I was very much impressed by her.
I did try to go to college and try to be an English major.
I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.
English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.
