George Mikes - How to be an Alien (1946)

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When people say England, they sometimes mean Great Britain, sometimes the United Kingdom, sometimes the British Isles, - but never England.

George Mikes
On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

George Mikes
Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game.

George Mikes
An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.

George Mikes
The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit.

George Mikes
Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

George Mikes
The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.

George Mikes
Television is of great educational value. It teaches you while still young how to (a) kill, (b) rob, (c) embezzle, (d) shoot, (e) poison, and, generally speaking, (f) how to grow up into a Wild West outlaw or gangster by the time you leave school.

George Mikes
You must not refuse any additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.

George Mikes
The English take everything with an exquisite sense of humour. They are only offended if you tell them that they have no sense of humour.

George Mikes