British Reserve Quotes

I really love the combination of Israel and England. They are completely different. The British are very private and keep things to themselves, while Israelis aren't that way. In England, I couldn't make friends with people in the supermarket or people who work at my bank or post office, but in Israel I can, and I like that.

I think sensitive is the wrong description of me. I'm British, actually, so quite bad at expressing myself in conversation, as any ex-girlfriend will tell you. I'm probably emotionally stunted.

I'm quite British in the sense of not expressing my emotions much. I save it for my songs. If you ask about a death in the family, or a lover, I will not be emotional. I'd probably answer with a smile. Because that's what we British blokes do.

And I definitely do that very British thing of, take things with a pinch of salt, stiff upper lip, you know what I mean?

The English take their pleasures sadly, after the fashion of their country.

The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.

British culture is very cynical sometimes of overt displays of sentimentality, and I think that becomes almost a suspicion of emotion, or a suspicion of someone making a grand statement. It is always easier to be ironic, or 'meta', or coolly postmodern. But I think there is such a thing as authentic sentimentality.

I don't like being flattered. It doesn't suit my English sensibilities. Remember, we are the great country of understatement.

Last time I went Intercity there were a couple across the aisle having sex. Of course, this being a British train, nobody said anything. Then they finished, they both lit up a cigarette and this woman stood up and said, Excuse me, I think you'll find this is a non-smoking compartment.

English people are famous for never speaking out but only saying what they really feel about you behind your back. Americans believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I like exploring those, er, differences in national snippiness.

I'm English. All we do is blush.

In film, it's very important to not allow yourself to get sentimental, which, being British, I try to avoid. People sometimes regard sentimentality as emotion. It is not. Sentimentality is unearned emotion.

I always say to anybody who's going over to America for the first time, 'Whatever you do, go and see a popular mainstream film with a big audience.' Because people shout out. You never get that in Britain. Everybody's so quiet, scared to laugh. It's like being in church.

The British have a remarkable talent for keeping calm, even when there is no crisis.

Earnestness makes British people gag.

What the English like to do is to face reality with a glass of port and a tear and fade off like Basil Rathbone into the sunset.

British people don't express when they are in pain. They don't think it's elegant.

My husband doesn't know what my songs are about - even when they're about him. He's very British in that way. He doesn't ask, and he doesn't want to be told.

The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.

In England we are sort of very awkward.

Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their mothers.

The British people are extremely conventional. You don't always know what one is thinking or feeling because it is basically hidden. The British people basically let you see what they want you to see.

There's a particularly British wariness of appearing to try too hard. It's somehow distasteful. Everything should come to us seamlessly and, if you have to work at it, you're somehow a loser.

The problem with being British... I don't know if it's me being British or being raised a strict Catholic, but you never really enjoy success.