All people from small islands dance funny.

Frightened is the natural state for all men.

I can tell very quickly when people are lying.

The only acceptable cravat is the original Croat one.

The problem with a man bag is that it's called a man bag.

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

Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.

Television gives us the gift to see ourselves as we'd like to be seen.

To a British politician, a police officer is as invisible as the railings.

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

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

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

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

I tell you, once a girl's got a dose of novels she's a pushover for iambic pentameter.

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

The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

I don't have prejudices against anybody. I have opinions, based on a lifetime's experience.

I don't do dinner parties. I have people come to share the food I've cooked for the family.

Shorts are silly. Men in shorts are silly men. And silly is the very worst thing a man can be.

You don't have a choice about fashion or aesthetics - you're in it, whether you like it or not.

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

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

Everyone has to go to a funeral at some time and you need to be dark and sombre, and in a black tie.

Sport is how poor kids from poor countries pass through the eye of the needle to riches and recognition.

He (Jeremy Clarkson) is the last man standing on the beach commanding the glaciers' melt waters to go back

It is impossible to be taken seriously in shorts. No one has ever cared about anything said by a man in shorts.

Boredom is not a thing. It's not a feeling or a condition. It is the absence of feelings, things and conditions.

Gift giving is one of the oldest forms of human interaction. It is a behaviour all cultures and all classes share.

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

The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.

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

For men, privacy means not being told stuff that would hurt. For women, secrecy is having stuff go on behind your back.

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

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

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'm terribly prone to anxiety. I get very depressed and I get very anxious and my anxiety is almost always about my children.

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

People who don't believe in God are no happier than people who do, and those who do believe are no nicer than those who don't.

I still secretly believe that afternoons are the time for the test card and you shouldn't watch television when the sun is out.

Nobody ever forgets their first night in the bush. It's among the precious, meagre handful of life firsts that remain indelible.

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.

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

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.

Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.

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

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

We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

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.

You either get the point of Africa or you don't. What draws me back year after year is that it's like seeing the world with the lid off.

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.

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