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Quotes by British Authors
"What's the book like?""Well, some of it's twaddle, but mostly it's just piffle. Cheers!"
"I really like the Observer. I think I'd love to have a column with a broad reach that would enable me to do some proper reporting, but keep it on sort of a humorous level. I've always had a very happy experience writing for them."
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."
"The logic of Palladian architecture presented an aesthetic formula which could be applied universally."
"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising."
"People ask 'do you make a conscious effort not to swear?' - if you're doing silly stuff you're not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway."
"To know ourselves, is agreed by all to be the most useful Learning; the first Lessons, therefore, given us ought to be on that Subject."
"However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbours, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account."
"Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions."
"One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes."
"I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite."
"They can certainly expect to be very impressed with the technical aspects of the show, fooled and led up the garden path by the story and ultimately have a jolly good laugh!"
"If we lose the war in the air we lose the war and we lose it quickly."
"American troops have not only occupied Ulster but are arriving in increasing numbers in England."
"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
"Without Hitler, the State of Israel probably would not exist today. To that extent he was probably the Jews' greatest friend."
"Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich."
"I did not fully understand the dread term 'terminal illness' until I saw Heathrow for myself."
"I love this country, I love these people, though I can't say I love their politicians. People are always nicer than politicians, but here, you can mark that difference up a hundredfold."
"Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming."
"The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs."
"I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator."
"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
"The passage of time is simply an illusion created by our brains."
"I am not sure about facelifts because I wouldn't want to be someone who just looks like she's had a facelift."
"A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy."
"Now being upon the haunches (as he necessarily must be in this case) is it impossible but he must be light in hand, because no horse can be rightly upon his haunches without being so."
"The very idea of true patriotism is lost, and the term has been prostituted to the very worst of purposes. A patriot, sir! Why, patriots spring up like mushrooms!"
"How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask-half our great theological and metaphysical problems-are like that."
"It is a curious thing, but I have been right in everything I have done and said in my life."
"A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer."
"Imagination is at the root of much that passes for love."
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