London Quotes: Capturing the Essence of the Iconic City

"It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom"

"I started noticing how stained the pavements are in London. The pavements in Beverly Hills aren't used; in London, they're used for everything. It doesn't matter how much they're cleaned, they still reflect light"

Julie Christie, Actress

"All over London as one walks, one everywhere, in the season, sees oranges to sell; and they are in general sold tolerably cheap, one and even sometimes two for a halfpenny; or, in our money, threepence"

Karl Philipp Moritz, Author

"When I came back from filming 'Abduction', I told my agent: I'm staying in London now. If it takes doing children's theater from the back of a van in Kilburn, that's OK. I need to be with my family. My job is to keep the family together and provide for them"

Jason Isaacs, Actor

"On the other hand in London you can get an audience that desires dance to go as far as it can go: they've seen the bricks of ideas built over a period so therefore there is an acceptance of what otherwise might seem out on a limb"

Siobhan Davies, Dancer

"On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy"

Carroll Quigley, Writer

"I think I would say 'The King's Speech' is surprisingly funny, in fact the audiences in London, Toronto, LA, New York commented there's more laughter in this film than in most comedies, while it is also a moving tear-jerker with an uplifting ending"

Tom Hooper, Director

"The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

"London is a roost for every bird"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"London is a modern Babylon"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income"

George Bernard Shaw, Dramatist

"I studied for my degree in London and consequently ended up spending five years away from Cornwall. I deliberately moved away from the coast to experience a different way of life"

John Dyer, Artist

"And I had known Peter O'Toole before in London. And I'd liked him very much. And the thought of being in a picture with him was very challenging to me. And he was playing the starring role"

Anthony Quinn, Actor

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford"

Samuel Johnson, Author

"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford"

Samuel Johnson, Author

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show"

Samuel Johnson, Author

"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London"

Ambrose Bierce, Journalist

"It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in"

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Composer

"On one night of my debut the Prince of Wales, the Princess, and the duchess of London came to see me. They loved me for what I was and what I gave them"

Lillie Langtry, Actress

"I worked in rep for six years, then I came to London and to the National Theatre. What's better than that?"

Imelda Staunton, Actress

"I'll never forget when we played Shepherd's Bush in London. We played 'I Run To You', and we put the mic out for the last chorus, and you could hear them singing the chorus with the beautiful accent that they have"

Hillary Scott, Musician

"I have a lot of expectations and a lot of goals I want to fulfill, but the biggest dream is still to make the Olympic team for London"

Shawn Johnson, Athlete

"Our hearts and prayers go out to the people in London and in Egypt. We're very concerned about it. We are providing our expertise to aid in the investigation in London"

Alberto Gonzales, Public Servant

"I was brought up in the War. I was an adolescent in the Second World War. And I did witness in London a great deal of the Blitz"

Harold Pinter, Playwright

"The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside"

Arthur Conan Doyle, Writer

"I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role"

Orlando Bloom, Actor

"I came back out here from England and I was there for a while and it was beautiful and it is just great to see London going from Spring to Summer and Autumn"

Orlando Bloom, Actor

"My actual childhood, as opposed to my adolescence, was not spent in London"

Peter Shaffer, Playwright

"In London, before I set out, I had paid one shilling; another was now demanded, so that upon the whole, from London to Richmond, the passage in the stage costs just two shillings"

Karl Philipp Moritz, Author

"The first song is called "London." It's about two Russian soldiers who desert the Russian army and escape to London, where they indulge in a life of crime"

Neil Tennant, Musician

"Well I grew up in England, and I was in the London police"

Tony Greig, Athlete

"When you're doing a deal with someone in the southern Sahara, it's a very different way of doing business than in London. You can't sign them in the usual way because they'd end up getting ripped off, which would defeat the object of setting up a label like this"

Damon Albarn, Musician

"When we race in London a world record will be the last thing on our minds"

Haile Gebrselassie, Athlete

"What can you do if a part of it is uphill? You can't work out another route. You've just got to run the one they give you. But they tell me London is a nice course. Even the cobbles, I hope, are not very much of a problem for me"

Haile Gebrselassie, Athlete

"We used to play in a theater club in London called The King's Head. When the theater let nut, around 10:00 P.M., we'd be ready to go and really get it on for about an hour or so"

Mark Knopfler, Musician

"You know Manchester is always a bit of a hard place for people coming from London, just with all the history. Manchester has this immensely huge and healthy history musically"

Graham Coxon, Musician

"The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin"

Gerry Adams, Politician

"A man may learn from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London"

Charles Kingsley, Clergyman

"If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting"

Peter Shaffer, Playwright

"People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan"

Toby Young, Journalist

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