I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.

The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are who like to be told the worst.

It was part of your religion to hate the British.

My father and I had a good relationship it was very relaxed. He had a lot of humour. He looked a little bit like me although he had no beard. He had the appearance of a very elegant British-looking man.

It has been argued that British girls are incapable of deep feeling or brilliant acting owing to their lack of temperament. This I am positive is not true.

The positive news is that the British economy is continuing to grow and is creating jobs. And it is positive news too that at a time of real international instability we are a safe haven in the storm.

Short of being prime minister there isn't a better job in British politics than running London.

I've committed myself to serve my constituents in South Shields and I have committed myself to British politics.

I'm highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don't feel in tune with British politics.

There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre.

One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming cleaning modernising our clapped-out system.

I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

As they say one thing led to another and ultimately the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations which ironically began six years ago this week.

I didn't really see the British punk movement if that's what it was as wildly original because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973 really.

I've always said that Adele has turned so many people on to British singers - whether female singers or just like music from this country in general.

I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.

The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal the British director.