Upper-Class Quotes

I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We’re African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

We live in a world where if you‘re white, an upper-class male of extreme privilege, and able-bodied, and you’re nothing that takes you away from that norm, then you’re going to have – then the world will not assign you problems because of what you are. That is actually the world we live in.

I was born in Paris in 1950. I had a strict upper-class Catholic education but I never really fitted in the system and revolted against it quite early.

I grew up in South Florida, and my family was pretty poor. We weren’t your upper-class whites by any means.

When I was younger, I played a lot of upper-class English girls. Then I came to America, and everyone was like, ‘She‘s very believable as trailer trash.’

What interests me is the idea that classics is actually quite democratic. It isn’t only the toff, upper-class subject it’s often thought to be. Every generation enjoys rediscovering it.

When I was younger, I played a lot of upper-class English girls. Then I came to America, and everyone was like, ‘She‘s very believable as trailer trash.’

Hockey historians say the handshake dates to English settlers in Canada, who preached an upper-class version of sportsmanship in the 19th century. Soon, tough kids in urban and prairie rinks began imitating imagined dukes and earls of the old country.

For a very long time, loyalists were often left out of patriotic American histories of the revolution. Or they were caricatured as upper-class Tory reactionaries, or – rather like the Jacobites – made the subject only of nostalgic antiquarianism.

When I first left drama school, I was too posh for the working-class parts and not posh enough for the upper-class roles. You know what England is like: the gradations of accent and how you’re judged by them are still there. I discovered that to get a break you have to lie about where you’re from.

‘Downton Abbey‘ about upper-class posh people: of course it is.

That the actual practice of meritocracy mostly involves a strenuous quest to avoid any kind of downward mobility, for oneself or for one’s kids, is something every upper-class American understands deep in his or her highly educated bones.

The working classes in England were always sentimental, and the Irish and Scots and Welsh. The upper-class English are the stiff-upper-lipped ones. And the middle class. They’re the ones who are crippled emotionally because they can’t move up, and they’re desperate not to move down.

Hockey historians say the handshake dates to English settlers in Canada, who preached an upper-class version of sportsmanship in the 19th century. Soon, tough kids in urban and prairie rinks began imitating imagined dukes and earls of the old country.

White middle- and upper-class men have a longer journey to go than many people.

We don’t know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been a great amount of scholarship in the last 30 years about education in the Hellenistic world and women in the Hellenistic world. We now know how an upper-class woman was educated in her day.

I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it’s difficult for ‘poor people‘ – poor white people, brown people – to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are.

‘Downton Abbey‘ about upper-class posh people: of course it is.

So often in English fiction, people are either upper-class twits, or else they’re knockabouts, less than human.

I was raised as an upper-class WASP in New England, and there was this old tradition there that everyone would simply be guided into the right way after Ivy League college and onward and upward. And it rejected me, I rejected it, and I ended up as a kind of refugee, really.

White middle- and upper-class men have a longer journey to go than many people.

So often in English fiction, people are either upper-class twits, or else they’re knockabouts, less than human.

When I first left drama school, I was too posh for the working-class parts and not posh enough for the upper-class roles. You know what England is like: the gradations of accent and how you’re judged by them are still there. I discovered that to get a break you have to lie about where you’re from.

Tennis was a white, upper-class sport, and I wanted it to be treated like other sports were.

I grew up in Solihull, on the edge of what was then the Birmingham conurbation. It was a good place to write comedy from. I didn’t feel allegiance to anything. I didn’t have working-class pride or upper-class superiority.

We don’t know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been a great amount of scholarship in the last 30 years about education in the Hellenistic world and women in the Hellenistic world. We now know how an upper-class woman was educated in her day.

What interests me is the idea that classics is actually quite democratic. It isn’t only the toff, upper-class subject it’s often thought to be. Every generation enjoys rediscovering it.

I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it’s difficult for ‘poor people‘ – poor white people, brown people – to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are.

That the actual practice of meritocracy mostly involves a strenuous quest to avoid any kind of downward mobility, for oneself or for one’s kids, is something every upper-class American understands deep in his or her highly educated bones.

I was born in Paris in 1950. I had a strict upper-class Catholic education but I never really fitted in the system and revolted against it quite early.

I grew up in a wealthy upper-class household in Jamaica, which was run along militaristic lines by my mother, Gloria.

For a very long time, loyalists were often left out of patriotic American histories of the revolution. Or they were caricatured as upper-class Tory reactionaries, or – rather like the Jacobites – made the subject only of nostalgic antiquarianism.

I’m a big John Steinbeck fan. Cormac McCarthy. I’ve always loved the stories of regular people. Mark Twain, too. When you look back at some of the epic writers of our country’s history, very rarely do you find upper-class royalty. We seem to delve into the struggle of life and the labor of life much more frequently.