East London Quotes

I was brought up working class in east London with my own thoughts and my own beliefs and, when I began playing, I got involved in charity work and expanded those beliefs.

I wanted to cut past the polemics and experience London's Muslim communities for myself. My first visit was to Tower Hamlets, an East London borough that is about 38% Muslim, among the highest in the U.K. As I walked down Whitechapel Road, the adhan, or call to prayer, echoed through the neighborhood.

I love driving around east London - it's always full of surprises. Actually, I don't drive myself - I like to be driven.

The British are so funny. It's like they can't believe I lived in Hackney. 'You could live in Bondi Beach. Why would you want to live in 'Ackney?' But Hackney's fantastic. I'm serious. There are so many artists there. I loved the markets, the parks, the pubs, the diversity. It was a cultural melting-pot.

I was an only child. Both my parents came from working-class families in Hackney, east London.

I grew up in south London, and I remember watching the scene pop off in East and think, 'Ahhhh, I would love to be in Bow E3 right now spitting wid Wiley and Dizzee.'

I'm from Stratford, East London. I can get down and dirty. I just roll my sleeves up and get on with it.

I have always been English, ever since I emigrated from England and since the kids in Canada beat me up at the age of twelve for having an East London Cockney accent. I thank them for the cockney taunts because the beatings turned me on to boxing. But on a serious note Canada has been kind to me.

I was only 14 when I started playing the east London rave scene. At the time, I was so captivated by everything. I didn't ever wanna progress out of that scene.

Traditional British desserts with lots of custard are my biggest weakness - I particularly love the puds at St. John restaurant in East London.

My mother was Indian, brought up in Delhi. My grandparents were born in Bow and Poplar.

I was ecstatic when we won - to host the Olympics is one of the biggest opportunities in living memory. It will help change the lives of young people and transform east London.

If you cut me open I bleed East London.

I'm a girl from East Ham.

I'm just getting to know the local pubs. I do enjoy going out in east London.

I'm from east London.

I'm a street footballer. I'm hardcore. Growing up in east London, you've got to be a little bit self-confident. As a player, I would go into detail, watch who I was playing against. Who might come into my vicinity. That gives you self-confidence.

Perhaps it is no surprise I became an entertainer because many of my relatives were natural performers. Dad, who had a fine pair of lungs, was master of ceremonies at East Ham working men's club in east London. I felt so proud when I saw him in his white gloves calling out the names of the dances.

Famously in 1936, Oswald Mosley led a march of his British black shirts through a mostly Jewish neighborhood, in the east end of London. What resulted was what they called the "Battle of Cable Street", where Oswald Mosley and his fascists basically got the snot beaten out of them when East London rose up against them and beat them up.

My first vote was for a communist in east London when I was a medical student. But I've voted Tory, Labour and Lib Dem in my time.

Spitalfields - I often find myself milling around there. I always go down Spitalfields whenever I can.

'Cockneys vs. Zombies' does exactly what it says on the tin.

It's a weird thing, beards now. I'll be in east London, and lads come up to me: 'Yo man, what beard oil do you use?' I'm like, 'I don't know what you're talking about.' It's just laziness.

'Top Boy,' for some people, was very controversial because it seemed to be portraying black people in a certain light that they thought to be stereotypical. However, what I would say is that the writer went and lived in Hackney in East London for a long time and did his research really well.

I spent a lot of time with a real detective, a lady detective inspector who was the only female detective inspector in the whole of East London. She and I hung out a lot. She showed me what she did and I spent time with her. So, [she was] a lot of the inspiration for the way I dressed and sometimes the dialogue in those interview scenes where we're cross examining and questioning the youths and trying to get a confession out of them.