There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear — the city of London and the South Seas.

Herman Melville (1819-1891), The South Seas

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed.

King George VI (1895-1952)

If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.

Peter Shaffer (1926-2016)

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American.

Stephen Fry (b.1957), The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within