Quotes

I don't know if English is the only language where some expressions only and solely mean the opposite of what they say but we do have an awful lot of them.

One of the small joys that's easy to miss in London is the blue plaques on buildings. These are put up to commemorate the famous on the houses they lived in.

Gifts are an important and necessary part of our collective lives. We need to give and we need to allow others to give.

We have to thank the members of the Romantic movement for the sober colours of suits. It was their love of the Gothic that put us in grey and black but the suit stuck.

I don't remember ever stealing things, but I suppose I was endlessly borrowing money off people.

You see, the problem with Dave Cameron is that people know who he is. The less people know about him, the more he's likely to get re-elected.

The Lib-Dems are sidekicks. They were born to be sidekicks and that's what they should concentrate on being.

The answer is that if God exists, he doesn't seem to mind if you believe in him or not.

It's not in the nature of stoic Cincinnatians to boast, which is fortunate, really, for they have meager pickings to boast about.

I can tell very quickly when people are lying.

Nature gave you your look and there's only a limited amount you can do about that, but what you wear is the skin you choose for yourself.

The Creation Museum isn't really a museum at all. It's an argument. It's not even an argument. It's the ammunition for an argument. It is the Word made into bullets. An armory of righteous revisionism.

Twenty is a tough age because it slips past in the middle of so much else - university, gap year, leaving home, getting jobs.

In fact, everybody should wake up smelling nice. I go further, there is not an excuse, ever, not to smell nice, particularly your feet.

And learn to tie a bow - it's not difficult and there's no excuse for either a clip-on or the hideous Hollywood straight tie.

I don't go to the openings of shops or parties given by people I don't know.

Really, I like the future. I appreciate my automatic alarm-call necklace in case I get lost and confused in a mall. I appreciate the watch that tells the hospital my blood pressure's gone ballistic. I like my computer, just as long as it doesn't get ideas above its workstation.

Frightened is the natural state for all men.

If you're bored, it's because someone else is fulfilling his dream. Become a bore. It's the most interesting thing you'll ever do.

The measure of a man's life is how he copes with the terrible wall of fear.

No 13-year-old or over should ever be seen in trousers that finish above the ankle. It doesn't matter how good your legs are, or if you're on a beach in Bermuda where they invented the things.

I'm too vain to go on TV. I'd be a monster of self-consciousness. Plus, I've got a ridiculous voice - I sound like a camp friend of Bertie Wooster's.

Being able to afford everything you desire is not, by any means, the worst thing that can happen to you. But, depressingly, and more profoundly, neither is it the best.

Margaret Thatcher was as viscerally hated at home as she was warmly respected abroad.

There's no pleasing the British, or winning their favor. They simply hate politicians. All politicians. Hatred goes with politicians like mint sauce with lamb. It's as old as Parliaments.