Craig Brown Quotes

Men know something that women don't know. Never ask directions of a stranger.

Children are perfectly happy to sit next to spiders; it is only grown-ups who are frightened away.

Alan Whicker may be the last Briton to have worn a silver-buttoned blazer with complete confidence.

Looking back, some of the happiest moments of my childhood were spent with my arm in packets of breakfast cereal, rootling around for a free gift.

Tweeting is the go-to medium for the show-off and the shyster.

another of their acquaintances finds himself mesmerised by the way that he 'always had something of ... rivetting stupidity to say on any subject'.

More often than not, theatre critics bubble with enthusiasm about plays that are, when all is said and done, really pretty average.

When I tell people I don't own a mobile phone and wouldn't know how to text, they react as though I have just confessed that I can't read.

There's nothing wrong with procrastination. Or is there? I'll leave it to you to decide, but only if you have the time.

My life is a monument to procrastination, to the art of putting things off until later, or much later, or possibly never.

When cars honk and hoot and drunks squeeze out of car windows and scream, you can be sure that football is in the air.

By and large, the artistic establishment disapproved of Margaret Thatcher.

More and more, I find that the news reads like a particularly random game of Consequences.

One of the many joys of tongue-twisters is that they serve no purpose beyond fun.

My father, a captain in the 5th Battalion of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, landed in Normandy the day after D-Day.

For some reason, it is always thrilling to spot your home town in the news.

Cleanliness is the scourge of art.

One of the tricks of life is to have sense and money in roughly equal proportions.

As a rough rule of thumb, I would say the smaller the pond, the more belligerent the fish.

Like many men, I am highly skilled in the art of losing things but prefer to outsource the recovery process.

A decent beard has long been the number one must-have fashion item for any fugitive from justice.

It is only if you happen to be a newscaster that the tongue-twister spells peril.

All the wealthiest people in the U.S. seem compelled to brag about how humble they are.

The British love of queuing and discomfort and being bossed around seems to have found a new outlet in the pop festival.

Some of the most untidy writers have also been the most productive. Iris Murdoch, for instance, wrote a good 30 books in a house strewn with rubbish.

The only behaviour that is truly common is to avoid doing something because you think others might consider it common.

The news is increasingly full of mismatched people saying daft things to one another.

Poets, for example, are generally considered starry-eyed and sensitive, but only by those who have never encountered one.

Historians are the consummate hairdressers of the literary world: cooing in public, catty in private.

The first thing I hear when I wake up is the sea, which is so close to our house that its reflections from the sun dapple our bedroom ceiling.

Words have a life of their own. There is no telling what they will do. Within a matter of days, they can even turn turtle and mean the opposite.

Monopoly may also end in tears, but its tensions are cruder, lacking the infinitely subtle shadings of irritation and acrimony provided by Scrabble.

The first sign builders are on their way is when - hey, presto! - a skip appears outside your house.