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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

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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Firsts
Wonderful
Deceased
First
Attention
Fuss
Great
United
Centre
Make
Funny
Humorous
Living
Suddenly
Also
Dying
America
Becomes
Undertakers
States
Fun
Undertaker

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'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
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It is often said that the Japanese are extremely clean at home, or inside any house or office, but dirty and untidy outside. 'Go and look at a railway station,' I was told, 'and you'll be horrified.' I went and was horrified horrified by the cleanliness of the place.
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If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity.
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I said in my earlier book, and find no reason for retracting my statement, that the famous Jewish sense of humour got lost in transit to Israel.
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To have created a Welfare State was a great achievement but we must go on to create a Welfare Planet.
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Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
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THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
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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.
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A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.
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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.
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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.
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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
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People on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.
George Mikes
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Jokes are better than war. Even the most aggressive jokes are better than the least aggressive wars. Even the longest jokes are better than the shortest wars.
George Mikes
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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.
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In Moscow they do not pay much attention to the living but keep their cemeteries in a splendid state.
George Mikes
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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
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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.
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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.
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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