Quote

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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George Mikes
Age: 75 †
Born: 1912
Born: February 15
Died: 1987
Died: August 30
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
Siklos
Funny
Aggressive
Thought
Humorous
Impassive
Country
Russia
Impertinent
Made
Telling
Joking
Always
Laughing
Courteous
Men
Knew
Stern
Face
Threatening
Faces
Sarcastic

More quotes by George Mikes

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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.
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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Continental people have a sex life the English have hot-water bottles.
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suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.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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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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'I don't say a Zionist must be insane,' said President Weizmann, 'but it helps if he is.'
George Mikes
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Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
George Mikes
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Many Continentals think life is a game the English think cricket is a game.
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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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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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
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Once you start buying first aid kits you start having accidents.
George Mikes
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Television is of great educational value. It teaches you while still young how to (a) kill, (b) rob, (c) embezzle, (d) shoot, (e) poison, and, generally speaking, (f) how to grow up into a Wild West outlaw or gangster by the time you leave school.
George Mikes
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Tel-Aviv airport is still the only airport in the world where each passenger is met by ten relatives.
George Mikes
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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
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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 Art of Conversation could not die in Australia it never lived. Television did not kill it there was nothing there to kill.
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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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
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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.
George Mikes