Malcolm Bradbury

Culture is a way of coping with the world by defining it in detail.

If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments - we'd have the Ten Suggestions.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.

Only the old are innocent. That is what the Victorians understood, and the Christians. Original sin is a property of the young. The old grow beyond corruption very quickly.

You Liberals think that goats are just sheep from broken homes.

My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.