ARTS / Overheard
We (the British) have developed cynicism and sarcasm to a fine art. It provides us with some interesting television shows and some very good comedians, but it creates a culture which is prohibitive and restrictive.
Brian Eno, artist, musician
and curator, Independent
Once put down, it is impossible to pick up.
Lord St John, royal-watcher, on
the book Princess in Love
By and large television is wallpaper, and getting worse. It goes for viewers who sit with the sound half-down and blether right through the programme. Just because 18 million people have their sets switched on, it doesn't mean they are watching.
Robbie Coltrane, star of
the ITV hit Cracker, Radio Times
You know why they don't drink in California? Because they spend so much time telling lies, they can't remember them if they drink.
Coltrane again
I'm not going to pretend that there is any great big fat characterisation going on, because all I was thinking was, Keep everybody safe.
Meryl Streep, actress, on her
role as a heroic canoe-guide in
The River Wild, US magazine
It was foreseeable that he would lose his footing. He was an inexperienced, incompetent and nervous rider. They should never have allowed him to thunder across the bridge.
Peter Weitzman QC,
on the death of the actor
Roy Kinnear, filming The
Return of the Musketeers in 1988
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