Quotes About Pubs

“It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.”

— Simon Kuper

“Furniture is like that. Used and enjoyed as intended, it absorbs the experience and exudes it back into the atmosphere, but if simply bought for effect and left to languish in a corner, it vibrates with melancholy. Furnishings in museums ... are as unspeakably tragic as the unvisited inmates of old folk's homes. The untuned violins and hardback books used to bring 'character' to postwar suburban pubs crouch uncomfortably in their imposed roles like caged pumas in a zoo. The stately kitchen that is never or rarely used to bring forth lavish feasts for appreciative audiences turns inward and cold.”

— Will Wiles

“It was one of the things you put up with: that every Saturday young males trashed your trains, broke the windows of your pubs, destroyed your cars, wreaked havoc on your town centres. I didn't buy it, but it seemed to be so.”

— Bill Buford

“I carried my pint to a corner table and sat just looking at it for a moment: the head of foam, the tiny bubbles ascending through clear gold, the droplets condensing on the sides of the glass, then running down to form a wet circle on the beer mat. Reputations are ruined, marriages destroyed, lifes works forsaken for the beauty of such a sight. There are seven thousand pubs in London.”

— Poppy Z. Brite

“I'd like to think ... that people in pubs would talk about my poems”

— Philip Larkin

“But why have you dear English Jew whose forefathers fought to enter the country of Johnny Mill, the Stuart with a little heart, saunter in Haridwar, no pubs or fish and chips' counters here, only Ganga-Jal, -the holy ale- Quaff it for the spirit and carry it to the banks of Thames in a holy grail.”

— Aporva Kala

“Young writers should keep out of pubs and remember that the cliche way of the artistic life is a lie.”

— Patrick Kavanagh

“In its truest manifestation, where it gives judgments, poetry is super-luxury. It would be interesting to see what would happen to a High Court judge if he were forced to follow the true poetic formula, doing the job for love, being forced into pubs for relief.”

— Patrick Kavanagh

“I started - well, in England it works a little bit differently. You have to do Fringe theatre, which is basically free theatre. You do it in pubs and small theaters and village halls across the country, and you work for a theatre company. You're part of a troupe.”

— Joshua Sasse

“All the best pubs are built on a hill, so you can slope in and roll out.”

— Benny Bellamacina

“In recent years, breweries and brew pubs have flourished across the Nation. And, as the Representative from Oregon's fourth district, I have enjoyed seeing the diversity that craft brewery has fueled across the Nation.”

— Peter DeFazio

“And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks. Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry.”

— Bill Bryson

“Equally arresting are British pub names. Other people are content to dub their drinking establishment with pedestrian names like Harry's Bar and the Greenwood Lounge. But a Briton, when he wants to sup ale, must find his way to the Dog and Duck, the Goose and Firkin, the Flying Spoon, or the Spotted Dog. The names of Britain's 70,000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the improbable, from the deft to the daft. Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners-this is a basic requirement of most British institutions-and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal.”

— Bill Bryson

“The British are so funny. It's like they can't believe I lived in Hackney. 'You could live in Bondi Beach. Why would you want to live in 'Ackney?' But Hackney's fantastic. I'm serious. There are so many artists there. I loved the markets, the parks, the pubs, the diversity. It was a cultural melting-pot.”

— Rose Byrne

“I started singing in pubs and clubs around Belfast when I was 10. My dad is a musician, and he took me 'round; I impersonated Tina Turner and Shirley Bassey, and the crowd couldn't believe what was coming out of this little girl.”

— Rachel Tucker

“Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs - he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impeccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names is
The name of this Brummell of Cats;
And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to
By Bustopher Jones in white spats!”

— T.S. Eliot

“Personally, I've never been attracted to danger. It's not my sort of thing. I am more attracted to pubs and cafes. The known, safe and comfortable world.”

— Bill Bryson

“I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.”

— Simon Hoggart

“It is unfortunate that the pulling out of one phone can have such an effect on other people around. Sometimes I think it's because we remember when we could smoke in pubs, and that we pull out our phones together as once we pulled out our cigarette packets. But probably it's because we're easily bored.”

— Neil Gaiman

“Pubs are, disturbingly, where I hatch most of my best idea-sculptures: possibly it's something to do with the disinhibiting effects of alcohol, or maybe it's just having company to yack at.”

— Charles Stross

“I miss the banter with friends and family, which more often than not takes place within the confines of a decent public house. So I miss the pubs.”

— Chris Vance

“This is so much like the old days. And, again, I have mixed feelings. In some ways it's good and comfortable to be fitting straight back in like I've never been away, but, on the other hand, I'm getting this constrictive feeling as well. It's the same places - like the bars and pubs on Friday night - the same people, the same conversations, the same arguments and the same attitudes. Five years away and not much seems to have changed. I can't decide if this is good or bad.”

— Iain Banks

“As I travelled around Australia, strangers in pubs, on airplanes, in beach parking lots would bring up Gina Rinehart, not knowing I was writing about her. Everybody had something to say, some of it thoughtful, some of it poorly informed, some of it vividly obscene.”

— William Finnegan

“So we used to look for funny songs, and learn them and play them. And we used to play them in pubs.”

— Neil Innes

“As in Northern Ireland, children, shoppers, ordinary working men were all suitable targets. Bombs in department stores and pubs would have even more impact in the context of the widely anticipated social breakdown brought on by industrial decline, high unemployment, rising inflation and an energy crisis.”

— Ian McEwan

“I don't go to pubs.”

— Peter Capaldi

“At the beginning of my acting career, I worked for two seasons at the RSC and spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds exploring Shakespeare's countryside. It's my kind of English landscape, with its tiny villages and one-room thatched pubs.”

— Cherie Lunghi

“I was 18 when I first visited London, I'm very provincial like that, but I must confess the moment I got to America I thought: This is the place. It was more open, with 24-hour cities and pubs and restaurants that didn't close.”

— David Hockney

“I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet.”

— Dominic Monaghan

“People come up to me in pubs - gay pubs, mind you - and can't believe that I'm gay.”

— Luke Evans

“Trouble is, I don't get to play a lot at the moment because I've just signed a contract where I've got to do 200 shows a year in pubs, so the golf's fallen away a bit.”

— Eric Bristow

“She is more memory than reality. She belongs to a time of teenage crushes, first kisses, crowded lecture halls and smoky pubs. Even if she had lived, we might have had nothing in common except the past.”

— Michael Robotham

“Orwell wrote easily and well about small humane pursuits, such as bird watching, gardening and cooking, and did not despise popular pleasures like pubs and vulgar seaside resorts. In many ways, his investigations into ordinary life and activity prefigure what we now call 'cultural studies.”

— Christopher Hitchens

“The docks were said to be quite tough, but there were pubs you didn't go into if you were a respectable ... but um, I never felt a sense of danger in Liverpool.”

— Derek Taylor

“I like Irish pubs, except for all the loud music and drinking, and people acting like idiots.”

— Dov Davidoff

“A lot of pubs in London are now faceless, expensive yuppy bars. Not like when I was growing up. The pub used to be, and should be, the pillar of community.”

— Jason Flemyng

“Near my apartment in London, a lot of the pubs kind of look identical, which is very strange.”

— Edgar Wright

“You have city centre pubs where men go to meet girls, not realising that all girls in city centre pubs have thighs like tug boats and morals that would surprise a zoo animal.”

— Jeremy Clarkson

“That means I can drive a flock of sheep through the town centre, drink for free in no less than 64 pubs and get a lift home with the police when I become inebriated. What more could you want?”

— Andrew Flintoff

“I dread the day I leave [Doctor Who], because then I'll have to go back to writing bedrooms and offices and pubs. And maybe a field, if I'm lucky.”

— Russell T. Davies

“I firmly believe as an author you have to go out in life and hear the stories of people. In pubs in the UK or a retirement home in the US it is the stories of others that bring a book to life.”

— Charles Todd

“I have a theory that musicians recognize each other and if they are destined to collaborate together they will. Mainly, they recognize each other according to the class they belong to. If they are punk-rocker kids from the neighborhood, they are going form a band. If they happen to be musicians that are going to play in pubs and restaurants, they are going to recognize each other, form a band and play together. If it's about musicians that are playing jazz and are going to jazz festivals, for e.g., then they are going to meet and work together.”

— Vlatko Stefanovski

“I used to go into pubs and people would want to pick a fight with me. I would hear a group of girls say: 'Oh look, there's Pat Cash.' And then one of them would come up to me and say, 'You think you're so good,' and throw a drink in my face. That kind of reaction from people was a bit of a shock initially, and you don't ever really get used to it.”

— Pat Cash

“It depends as there's many different types of chefs, some who cook for awards and others who cook to make their restaurant a great business. There are those who cook for a lifestyle, they'll have come through pubs and they like to have the connection to the farmers and the chickens and the natural produce. So for each chef it'll be slightly different.”

— Paul Rankin

“Dublin was turning into Disneyland with super-pubs, a Purgatory open till five in the morning.”

— Joseph O'Connor

“A horrid alcoholic explosion scatters all my good intentions like bits of limbs and clothes over the doorsteps and into the saloon bars of the tawdriest pubs.”

— Dylan Thomas

“Look at all our old men in pubs. Look at all our young people on drugs.”

— Sinead O'Connor

“Its a bit cloudy in London but people are already drinking out on the streets- God Bless the pubs.”

— Guillermo Del Toro

“A reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of a building is widely covered. The events that started the American Revolution were the meetings in homes, pubs, on street corners.”

— Harvey Milk

“Why can men no longer be best friends? This is so stupid. Today if you show two guys being best friends they end up giving out an image that they're gay. But guys don't always need to be drinking beer, fighting in pubs or pulling women by the hair. They may have a deep affection.”

— Henry Cavill