Quote

The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.

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
People
Characteristics
Extremely
Humorous
Americans
Gadget
American
Gadgets
Funny
Characteristic
America
Minded
Work
Peculiar

More quotes by 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
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
Australians are decent people with the right instincts and they wish everybody well but if all is not well, it is none of their business and they will not lose too much sleep over it. The shrug of the shoulders has become - only temporarily, I daresay - the national gesture of Australia.
George Mikes
Image
The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
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
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
Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.
George Mikes
Image
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
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
Remember that those five hundred words an average Englishman uses are far from being the whole vocabulary of the language. You may learn another five hundred and another five thousand and yet another fifty thousand and still you may come across a further fifty thousand you have never heard of before, and nobody else either.
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
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
A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.
George Mikes
Image
English humor resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither exists.
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
THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
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
Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
George Mikes
Image
It was decided almost two hundred years ago that English should be the language spoken in the United States. It is not known, however, why this decision has not been carried out.
George Mikes
Image
Although the rudiments of snobbery are there, its finer developments are basically alien to the Australian soul - that is, if Australians have a soul many people believe that they are too matter-of-fact and down-to-earth to have such fancy commodities.
George Mikes