Britishness Quotes

“In Britain, a cup of tea is the answer to every problem.
Fallen off your bicycle? Nice cup of tea.
Your house has been destroyed by a meteorite? Nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
Your entire family has been eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that has travelled through a space/time portal? Nice cup of tea and a piece of cake. Possibly a savoury option would be welcome here too, for example a Scotch egg or a sausage roll.”
― David Walliams, Mr Stink

“(But he could not bring himself to say he loved her; not in so many words.)”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“I certainly didn't concur with Edward on everything, but I was damned if I would hear him abused without saying a word. And I think this may be worth setting down, because there are other allegiances that can be stress-tested in comparable ways. It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance, and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical remarks about the old country, but would pull oneself together and say a word or two if it was attacked or criticized in any nasty or stupid manner by anybody else. It's family, in other words, and friends are family to me. I feel rather the same way about being an American, and also about being of partly Jewish descent. To be any one of these things is to be no better than anyone else, but no worse. When confronted by certain enemies, it is increasingly the 'most definitely no worse' half of this unspoken agreement on which I tend to lay the emphasis. (As with Camus’s famous 'neither victim nor executioner,' one hastens to assent but more and more to say 'definitely not victim.')”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Go home, Johann — Walpurgis Nacht doesn’t concern Englishmen.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula's Guest

“You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Peter Pastmaster and the absurdly youthful colonel of the new force were drawing up a list of suitable officers in Bratts Club.

'Most of war seems to consist of hanging about,' he said. 'Let's at least hang about with our own friends.”
― Evelyn Waugh

“The fact that the Hegnish have absolutely no interest in any people except themselves can also cause offense, or even rage. Foreigners exist. That is all the Hegnish know about them, and all they care to know. They are too polite to say that it is a pity that foreigners exist, but if they had to think about it, they would think so.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Changing Planes

“The myth that the island of Britain was the God-given property of Welsh-speaking peoples stolen by the Saxons meant that the Welsh were reluctant to give up their claim on Britain by rejecting Britishness.”
― Simon Brooks, Why Wales Never Was: The Failure of Welsh Nationalism

“The newspaper was always behind the news, not in front. You shouldn't ever go to the papers for information. They usually printed what they thought people wanted to see, and they had no explanation to give. It wasn't the king they saw. That wasn't the king at all. It was the king's shadow. [...] The shadow king was a part of the English tradition. The English, the boy said, were fond of shadows. [...] Somebody asked if you were ever talking to a real man or a shadow when you talked to an Englishman [...] Some of them were the man and the shadow at the same time, but more shadow than man. [...] It was always difficult to distinguish between the man and the shadow, and sometimes it was all shadow. (p.49)”
― George Lamming

“It's a shithole but at least I can get a decent brew.' How very British, I thought to myself.”
― Kerry Daynes, The Dark Side of the Mind: True Stories from My Life as a Forensic Psychologist