Quotes by Victoria Coren Mitchell - Page 2

School is supposed to civilise us, to tame our wilder instincts and teach us how to be more sensible, more knowledgeable, and cleverer.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Sensible
Wilder
Tame
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I play quite an old-fashioned game of poker. It's a lot about getting a sense of people at the table rather than the maths of the thing.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Maths
Poker
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You will enjoy the TV and radio forecast much more if you stop taking it as advice and simply treat it as a short poem about the weather.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Weather
Forecast
Poem
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Reverse-parking in a small space is one of those high-pressure situations where a critical, watching eye becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Prophecy
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Self-Fulfilling
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I know that I'm probably far more pedestrian and less talented than many who dreamed of becoming writers but couldn't see the road so easily.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Dreamed
Pedestrian
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Weight gain is good because it makes your dresses tight. This is not necessarily classy or flattering, but it means you don't have to iron anything.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Dresses
Flattering
Iron
Weight
Because
Anything
Good Your Anything
Classy
Gain
Means
Makes
Necessarily
Tight
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The Highway Code can't be that difficult to understand, and yet my brain seems to treat it as a set of nuclear fission instructions in Old Japanese.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Code
Fission
Highway
Japanese
Instructions
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I'm convinced we go to school at the wrong time. I'd have been delighted, aged 12, to get out into the world and earn some money doing something menial.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Delighted
Wrong Time
Time Money World
Aged
Earn
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Being bored by clothes shopping feels smart and intellectual: 'Ooh, get me, insufficiently entertained by racks of skinny jeans; my mind is on higher things.'
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Bored
Jeans
Shopping
Entertained
Ooh
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It may be vain to care too much how you look, but it is impolite to care too little. You do a generous thing for the world when you present yourself properly.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Generous
Vain
Properly
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Politics is a pure meritocracy. That's why Gordon Brown's cabinet had two brothers and a married couple in it. They just happened to be the best people around.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Brown
Pure
Best Politics People
Cabinet
Gordon
Married Couple
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My speeding offences (whether caught or not) are always in situations where the speed limit is 30, but I think it's 40. And I'm never doing 40, always a careful 37.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Caught
Speed
Doing Always Never
Limit
Speed Limit
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Makeup is only fun if it's occasional and capricious - just like it's a treat to have an empty day ahead, but it wouldn't be if you were doing 20 years in Parkhurst.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Capricious
Empty
Makeup
Occasional
Ahead
Treat
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Ed Miliband should be out and proud about his abstruse interests, his Master's in Economics, his political obsession, his prioritising of the mental over the physical.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Obsession
Master
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Some of us find 'relaxing' to be, in itself, nerve-racking. If we aren't doing something useful or, at least, that seems useful, we feel guilty, impatient, and mortal.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Guilty
Nerve-Racking
Mortal
Relaxing
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If you are actually ordinary, the only way to give royal status meaning is to live an extraordinary life. It can't be jeans and burgers and granny doing the babysitting.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Babysitting
Granny
Jeans
Ordinary
Ordinary Life
Royal
Life Way Live
Status
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When I was at school, I loved maths and read lots of books and was horrified at the idea of having a boyfriend... I was probably a nerd, but then, it was a negative term.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Boyfriend
Negative
Nerd
Term
Lots
Horrified
Maths
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I grew up near London Zoo, with which I was obsessed. I would lie in bed at night, thinking about the lions and tigers and wolves that were prowling only a few miles away.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Lions
Miles
Tigers
Near
Wolves
Zoo
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People have become desperate to reduce everything, including each other, to mindless categories of good and bad, as if the world can be divided into Facebook likes and dislikes.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Categories
Desperate
Divided
Good And Bad
Including
Likes
Mindless
Good World People
Good World Bad
Dislikes
Facebook
Reduce
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I had an instinct to take my husband's name when I got married. It felt like a romantic statement of pride, love, and permanence and of doing what's always been done in my family.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Instinct
Permanence
Statement
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The best thing about universal free school meals is that they would remove one of the embarrassing signals, easily picked up by children's supersensitive antennae, of family poverty.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Embarrassing
Meals
Remove
Signals
Picked
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The idea of MPs texting and emailing through debates makes my gorge rise, as it does when a minicab driver makes phone calls at the wheel. I'm not paying you to keep in touch with your mates!
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Mates
Phone Calls
Texting
Calls
Debates
Driver
Paying
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Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise... is the motto of people who are in the business of selling moisturisers. Your body is already 60% water. If that's not moist enough for you, sit in a puddle.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Motto
Selling
Your Body
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You can always recognise my restless peers and me; we are the people whose feet you hear tramping along the pavement at the other end of the phone line because we can only make calls while moving.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Pavement
Recognise
Restless
Always Me Feet
Calls
Me Feet People
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I can't believe that 100% of the people who stand in art galleries looking at art are thinking, 'Well, here I am, looking at art.' They must be having some sort of other, unselfconscious experience.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Galleries
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I am terrible at doing nothing. I'm not brilliant at doing one thing at a time, either. Ideally, I would fill out my tax return while watching a film; peel potatoes while reading the post; send emails in the bath.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Potatoes
Time I Am Doing
Bath
Emails
Fill
Ideally
Peel
Post
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If you find it difficult to draw a neat line with an eyeliner pencil, start with a big, thick, wonky line and then reduce it with eye makeup remover. This is serious advice. I do this every single time I put makeup on.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Neat
Thick
Every Single Time
Pencil
Reduce
Single Time
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The key to nature's therapy is feeling like a tiny part of it, not a master over it. There's amazing pride in seeing a bee land on a flower you planted - but that's not your act of creation, it's your act of joining in.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Nature
Amazing
Creation
Flower
Joining
Land
Over It
Pride
Seeing
Therapy
Tiny
Act
Bee
Part
Master
Feeling
Over
Planted
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My own, purely personal view is that reading, study, poetry, and scientific experiment might be more rewarding than a job or children, so I would never advise anyone against university if they're going for the right reasons.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Advise
Might
My Own
Reading
Study
University
Anyone
Experiment
Personal
Purely
Reasons
Rewarding
Right Reasons
Scientific
View
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Video piracy is among the most irritating aspects of modern life for those who work in the film business. Adverts telling you not to commit video piracy are among the most irritating aspects of modern life for those who don't.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Commit
Irritating
Modern Life
Piracy
Life Work Business
Aspects
Film Business
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I'm not a luddite. Science, computers, medicine, they're all great. But nature is context. That which we can't control. Its constant mortality and immortality is an answer to the terror of finite existence. It reassures the soul.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Computers
Finite
Immortality
Medicine
Mortality
Terror
Context
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MY INSPIRATION has always been Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who smoked and drank every day and died a few years ago at the age of 122. When asked the secret of her longevity, she replied: 'I laugh a lot.' Well you would, wouldn't you.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Inspiration
Laughing
Years
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Anger at the wealth gap is no longer about dukes in horse-drawn carriages; it's about vast, tax-dodging corporations. This will not be assuaged by seeing the royal family claiming to live like we do. If anything, that will make us angrier.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Anger
Corporations
Royal
Royal Family
Claiming
Gap
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Driving a car is no longer about zooming down clear lanes, the joy and freedom of the road flowing through your hair like a fine westerly breeze. It's about solid traffic, petrol fumes, spy cameras, eco-guilt, and simultaneous social media.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Breeze
Cameras
Clear
Fine
Joy
Petrol
Simultaneous
Social Media
Spy
Traffic
Solid
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When I was at school, I was forced to play lacrosse, a game in which tiny, rock-hard missiles fly at your head, and you must catch them with a stick to avoid a brain haemorrhage. I was regularly punished for not taking part more wholeheartedly.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Brain
Missiles
Tiny
Wholeheartedly
Avoid
Catch
Forced
Punished
Stick
Regularly
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I remember I had a copy of 'David Copperfield' that I lugged around at primary school. I started reading it when I was seven, and I was eight when I finished it. I read an awful lot as a little girl and played games and imagined lots of things.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Primary School
David
Awful Lot
Copy
Little Girl
Started Reading
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I pay higher premiums because my speeding points spell 'recklessness' to the insurance company, but you can't imagine how risk-averse I am at the wheel. I only go over 30 at all because it's dangerous to drive too much slower than everyone else.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Speeding
Everyone Else
Insurance
Slower
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Nature made your eyebrows like that for a reason. I don't know the reason. Some people say it's to do with keeping rain out of monkeys' eyes. Whatever. The point is, if you try to redesign your eyebrows with tweezers and pens, it will look terrible.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Eyebrows
Pens
Rain
Redesign
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Anyone who's tuned in to the House of Commons TV coverage knows the benches are often empty. I like that. I'm a big fan of political transparency. It's good for us to know which debates the MPs consider important enough to show up for, and which not.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Coverage
Empty
House Of Commons
Transparency
Bench
Big Fan
Commons
Consider
Debates
Tuned
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The truth is, I feel sorry for the Old Etonians. Everybody should be judged on his or her own merits. Assuming that toffs are 'out of touch' is more modern and fashionable than assuming they have a 'natural fitness for government,' but it's no fairer.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Fitness
Assuming
Judged
Sorry
Fairer
Merits
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It's not that I can't find art beautiful. I just don't know what to do, standing there in the gallery. I don't know what to think about. Once I've seen it, I've seen it; that takes about two seconds. I am interested and then immediately bored, immediately.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Bored
Gallery
Seconds
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I like the fact that the weather forecast is always wrong. In a world of BlackBerry insta-connection, Google research, and Hadron Colliders, it is a daily reminder of the ultimate ignorance of man. It is a signpost towards all the enormous things we cannot understand.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Enormous
Ignorance
Weather
Blackberry
Forecast
Reminder
We Cannot
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Many poker players swear by sleeping a certain number of hours before a tournament, going to the gym in the morning, and 'clearing the mind.' Juggling two jobs alongside my chosen game, I never have time and am invariably sending work emails from my iPhone between hands.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Jobs
Chosen
Clearing
Gym
Hours
Iphone
Juggling
Swear
Time Work Morning
Alongside
Emails
Number
Work Time Morning
Invariably
Poker
Sending
Sleeping
Tournament
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Insomniacs will be familiar with that disastrous moment as you lie there in the dark, with your eyes shut, when you think, 'What does my brain actually have to do to make me become asleep? What is the difference between that state and this? Why is the weird, invisible change not happening tonight?'
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Familiar
Invisible
Tonight
Asleep
Disastrous
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I never wanted poker to be a job. That's partly because I love it, and it's fun, and I didn't want it to stop being fun, and partly because, I suppose, something in me doesn't feel right about calling poker a job. It's not grown-up enough. But it's a hobby that takes up an enormous amount of my time.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Amount
Calling
Enormous
My Time
Love Time Enough
Love Time Me
Grown-Up
Suppose
Partly
Poker
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I'm familiar with that magical mindset during sporting competition where one feels completely zoned in on what's happening. There are occasional nights in poker when the mists have cleared, and I just know what my opponents' cards are. Everything at the table is slow, loud, and easy. The rest of the world is silent.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Cards
Familiar
Loud
Mindset
Occasional
Opponents
Silent
Nights
Cleared
Magical
Poker
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Society is notoriously stupid in its failure to harness the wisdom of older women in everything from television to politics, family life to boardrooms, and here is one reminiscing with honesty and realism about women's particular challenge: to create our professional and financial structures in the same period as our peak fertility.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Family Life
Fertility
Harness
Honesty
Older Women
Realism
Peak
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Everyone likes a pair of comfy shoes. But is this an automatic right? Comfy shoes are clearly not allowed at the Oscars, for example. Why should criminals enjoy a treat that is denied to our favourite actresses? All prisoners, male and female, should be obliged to wear high heels. This would also make them easier to catch during riots.
Victoria Coren Mitchell / Writer
Denied
Favourite
Heels
High Heels
Obliged
Oscars
Automatic
Catch
For Example
Pair
Prisoners
Riots
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Victoria Coren Mitchell Quotes - Page 2

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