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Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.

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
Courses
Hebrew
Course
Remained
Funny
Humorous
Language
Israel
English
National
Second
Humor

More quotes by George Mikes

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The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes
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English humor resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither exists.
George Mikes
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The poor Americans are so busy defending the rights of Hindus in Pakistan, Moslems in India, Jews in Palestine, Koreans in Japan, Italians in Yugoslavia and Hungarians in Czechoslovakia that they simply cannot give a thought to Negroes in the United States.
George Mikes
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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.
George Mikes
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In England only uneducated people show off their knowledge nobody quotes Latin or Greek authors in the course of conversation, unless he has never read them.
George Mikes
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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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Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.
George Mikes
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The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.
George Mikes
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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
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THE British are brave people. They can face anything, except reality.
George Mikes
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On the Continent people have good food in England people have good table manners.
George Mikes
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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
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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
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Continental people have a sex life the English have hot-water bottles.
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.
George Mikes
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The man who is not afraid of danger is not a hero, but a psychopath.
George Mikes
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You can keep a dog: but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
George Mikes
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A great deal of the pupils time was spent going through, once again, the History of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the Soviet Union. He had learnt it at elementary school at secondary school at his sports club at the Komsomol at the university at a folk dancing course at the chess-club.
George Mikes
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Travel' is the name of a modern disease which became rampant in themid-fifties and is still spreading. The disease - its scientific name is travelitis furiosus - is carried by a germ called prosperity.
George Mikes