Quotes

Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.

Mourning the loss of the phone call is like pining for buggy driving or women in hats or three-martini lunches. They've gone.

There are five great ages of man - five moments when you need to reevaluate everything, clear out the cupboard and the wardrobe, and most importantly, your head. They are 13, 20, 30, 40 and 60. All men need to know this.

I'm frightened of my innate vanity. I mean: the suits lined with scarves? Even I know the warning signs. I could quite easily end up in a tiny Playboy mansion, all on my own.

I generally only eat one meal a day, which is pretty unusual for a restaurant reviewer. It's not that I have a problem with food; I'll eat anything that doesn't involve a bet, a dare, or an initiation ceremony.

Men and women understand different things about personal boundaries. What men call privacy, women know as secrecy.

Texting isn't writing. It's not like letter writing. Texting is short scriptwriting. It's a collaborative soap opera where nothing happens.

A cravat has to be approached with consummate self-confidence and a devilish nonchalance. A cravat has to be grasped by a man who knows how to treat a cravat.

The trouble with righting some wrongs is that it makes the remaining ones seem even more unbearable.

I've often been accused of dressing too well. I've always been fascinated by fashion, though I don't think I'm particularly fashionable.

All people from small islands dance funny.

Money has to be an explosion of excitement and opportunity, yet we already secretly know that it doesn't do what it promises. Nothing has ever given us as much pleasure as our pocket money when we were 12, or our first wage at the end of that first exhausting week, paid in folded cash.

Cowboy boots you can't wear unless you actually are a cowboy or in a Status Quo tribute band, or over 60; there's something about a retiring gent in cowboy boots that looks sort of presidential.

Have you ever wondered why the rich and privileged care about, or even bother with, the gift bag? Because they don't need this stuff. If they wanted it, they could afford to buy it, without blinking. But they love the gift bag, beyond reason.

The only acceptable cravat is the original Croat one.

A lot of London's image never was. There never was a Dickensian London, or a Shakespearean London, or a swinging London.

So much of life is not about whether you're good or bad, or right or wrong, or can afford or not afford - it's just about timing.

The French are never happy coming to London; this is an ancient and comforting enmity.

When I joined the Sunday Times the people I was competing with were all 10 or 15 years younger, they all had double firsts from Oxford or Cambridge, they were all bright as new pins.

Clothes maketh the man. They don't make you some other man.

Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.

When you look at traditions closely, examine what they really are, you realize they're made up of layers and layers of deferrals, delays, indecisions, tomorrows and long lunches.

No British TV company could ever make a series like 'The West Wing' about British politics. It would beggar credibility. No one could write it with a straight face, or perform it without giggling.

Personal adornment is the only cultural form that everybody in the world takes part in.

You can propose marriage naked or in handcuffs, but no one is going to agree to forsake all others for a man in shorts. You can't declare war in shorts or deliver a eulogy in shorts.