Quote

The Art of Conversation could not die in Australia it never lived. Television did not kill it there was nothing there to kill.

George Mikes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Art
Australia
Nothing
Kill
Never
Lived
Conversation
Humor
Television
Dies
Funny

More quotes by George Mikes

Image
Was he joking? Was he being sarcastic? Aggressive? Impertinent? Or just courteous? There was no telling from his impassive face. What a country, he thought despairingly. In Russia you always knew. If a man made a stern face he was threatening if he was laughing uproariously, he was joking.
George Mikes
Image
In Moscow they do not pay much attention to the living but keep their cemeteries in a splendid state.
George Mikes
Image
On the Continent stray cats are judged individually on their merit-some are loved, some are only respected in England they are universally worshipped as in ancient Egypt.
George Mikes
Image
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
Image
To have created a Welfare State was a great achievement but we must go on to create a Welfare Planet.
George Mikes
Image
'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
George Mikes
Image
Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
George Mikes
Image
In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly, I don't object, you know. If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: I rather fancy you, in fact.
George Mikes
Image
Israel also deprived the world of its chance of shedding tears of genuine sympathy over her destruction. The world resents this it likes to feel noble and sympathetic.
George Mikes
Image
They (Americans) have their national game, baseball - which is cricket played with a strong American accent - and they have a national language, entirely their own, unlike any other language spoken on the earth.
George Mikes
Image
Long before the word Zionism was uttered for the first time, old religious Jews came from all over the world to die in Jerusalem. It is the finest place to die in - it has always been acknowledged. It has a joie de mourir quite its own.
George Mikes
Image
The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes
Image
Bargaining is a repulsive habit compromise is one of the highest human virtues - the difference between the two being that the first is practised on the Continent, the latter in Great Britain.
George Mikes
Image
Australia objects to the mini-skirt not on moral but on economic grounds. Australians are no prudes and the lovely, healthy, sporty Australian girls have no reason to hide their knees and thighs. However, the mini-skirt is disastrous for the wool-trade.
George Mikes
Image
The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.
George Mikes
Image
A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
George Mikes
Image
I have often thought that the aim of port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before.
George Mikes
Image
It is great fun dying in the United States of America. It is great fun first of all for the undertakers who make a wonderful living out of it but also for the deceased who suddenly becomes the centre of attention and fuss.
George Mikes
Image
Many Continentals think life is a game the English think cricket is a game.
George Mikes
Image
When a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut of without much ceremony but when the same happened in England, the monarch declared : We are not amused.
George Mikes