A. A. Gill Quotes, People Quotes, Dull Quotes

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

4 years ago

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , People Quotes , Dull Quotes

The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , School Quotes , Thinking Quotes

It's a great historical joke that when the Spanish met the Aztecs, it was a blind date made in serve-you-right heaven. At the time, they were the two most unpleasant cultures in the entire world, and richly deserved each other. Still, the story of how stout Cortes blustered, bullied and bludgeoned his way to collapsing an entire empire with a handful of contagious hoodlums is astonishing.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Two Quotes , History Quotes

The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Art Quotes , Knowledge Quotes

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

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America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.

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I don't know how long a child will remain utterly static in front of the television, but my guess is that it could be well into their thirties.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Children Quotes , Long Quotes

Beautifully shot, impeccably paced, it was a clear, unrelenting look at the National Trust, its friends and enemies, and it makes you want to burn your passport and beg the Luftwaffe to have another go.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Enemy Quotes , Looks Quotes

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

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I walk up a dune to a beach and look out to sea, but it's 100km away. The ships lie askew in their dry beds, at anchor for ever. Today is my son's birthday. Thousands of miles from here, his healthy lungs are blowing out candles. I should be there but I'm here with another boy, who puts his face close to mine and laughs. I smile back but realise he can't see it, because I'm wearing an antiseptic muzzles to protect me from his breath.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Funny Quotes , Beach Quotes

An American has invented a remote control that will turn off any telly within a 20ft radius. What a marvellous device! What a splendid invention! What a really helpful and improving way of devoting your time to building something that turns off culture. Next week, I'm instigating Burn a Book Week, to encourage even more conversation. I've come up with a fantastic little device which I'll call a box of matches.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Book Quotes , Next Week Quotes

A lobster bisque ought to be the crowning glory of the potager. And this one was excellent. Silky as a gigolo's compliment and fishy as a chancellor's promise.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Promise Quotes , Lobster Quotes

Once upon a time, a historian told me that the most important choice a new historian could make was of his or her specialist subject. Most of the good stuff was far too overcrowded, so you had to pick about in the exotic and extinct. His recommendations were the Picts or the Minoans, because hardly anything was known about them and you could spend a happy lifetime of speculation.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Happy Life Quotes , Important Choices Quotes

Like most parents, I've been stumped by homework, the big questions, such as: 'What is the point of geography - the pilot always knows where we are going?'. Answer: 'If you didn't know any geography, people would think you were an American, and you wouldn't be able to put them right because you wouldn't know where they live.'

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Thinking Quotes , America Quotes

My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Death Quotes , Father Quotes

Making a programme that appears to condone a positive stereotype actually enforces all the negative ones as well. It says that they all have a valid point. To assert that Americans are naive, Germans humourless and the French arrogant is one thing: they're big enough to take it. But to say that there's a conspiracy of Jewish bankers, that gypsies are thieves, Pakistanis are dirty and refugees are muggers is something quite else.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Dirty Quotes , Bankers Quotes

A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a chap will put up with almost everything, which means he won't care about anything enough to get out of a chair.A country of public insouciance and private, grubby guilt, where you can believe anything as long as you don't believe it too fervently. A country where the highest aspiration is for a quiet life.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Country Quotes , Believe Quotes

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

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Believe Quotes , Watches Quotes

The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Cheating Quotes , Sex Quotes

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.

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Tags : A. A. Gill Quotes , Life Quotes , Death Quotes