Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown. "
Simon Hoggart
Short
Book
First
Related Quotes:
" Every time humanists try to get a slot on 'Thought For the Day' on Radio 4, they are told it's reserved for 'the faith community,' whatever that is. Yet 'TfT' is almost always pabulum about how God wants us all to love each other and care for the unfortunate. I'm sure humanists would say much the same, without God. "
Simon Hoggart
Time
Love
God
" Some government expenditure actually makes a profit. Our theatre leads the world. Loads of tourists must be attracted by the fact that you could spend a week in London doing nothing but visit superb museums and galleries, free. "
Simon Hoggart
Free
Theatre
Week
" A married vicar is likely to regard his vocation as a job - a tough and ill-paid one, to be sure - but a priest is seen as a pillar of the community, answerable only to his parishioners and his God, rather than to a wife and children. "
Simon Hoggart
Job
God
Wife
" When you visit a foreign city you are in it, but not of it, separated by a glass wall. Once, while a student, I was getting dressed in my ground-floor room when a family of Italians crossed the grass to watch, as if I were laid on for their amusement and instruction. "
Simon Hoggart
City
Student
Watch
" There are few tribes more loathsome than the American Right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama's attempts at health reform are a useful reminder. "
Simon Hoggart
More
Right
Health
" Living in New York is like being at some terrible late-night party. You're tired, you've had a headache since you arrived, but you can't leave because then you'd miss the party. "
Simon Hoggart
New York
You
Tired
" In Washington, success is just a training course for failure. "
Simon Hoggart
Washington
Failure
Success
" 'Sir' Richard Branson may be the Julian Assange of British business, in that both believe the world revolves around them. Hence Branson's decision to set up an air service between Manchester and London, above the route of the train line that's been taken from him. "
Simon Hoggart
World
Service
Air
" Americans are fascinated by their own love of shopping. This does not make them unique. It's just that they have more to buy than most other people on the planet. And it's also an affirmation of faith in their country. "
Simon Hoggart
Unique
Shopping
People
" Even I would find a book about my life pretty dull. "
Simon Hoggart
Pretty
Even
Book
" What puzzles me is the way that some of the smaller, unknown chateaux imagine that because Chinese millionaires pay ludicrous sums for the great names, they can overcharge for their own inferior fluids. There is no trickledown effect in wine prices. "
Simon Hoggart
Way
Wine
Me
" It's sad that the BBC is toning down Dennis the Menace for a cartoon series. He is losing his weapons, catapult and peashooter, will no longer pick on Walter the Softy, and his ferocious grimace is to be replaced by a charming, boyish smile. "
Simon Hoggart
Losing
Down
Will
" The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral. "
Simon Hoggart
Washington
Party
Dinner Party
" One of the pleasures of staying with friends is that you get to browse their shelves. I always arrive with a book, but I almost never read it. It would be like sitting at their dinner table and opening a packet of sandwiches. "
Simon Hoggart
Sitting
Book
Dinner
" When people move from one extreme set of views to embrace another equally batty picture of the world, they expect us to applaud their choice, as if the fact that they have rejected one form of nuttiness somehow validates the screwball views they hold now. "
Simon Hoggart
Choice
People
Picture
" Switzerland still has a huge share of the watch market, all advertised at the airport on illuminated hoardings. Gosh, they are ugly. "
Simon Hoggart
Watch
Airport
Ugly
" I also learned to play Fruit Ninja on an iPad. It is quite hypnotic, and I hope one day to get past 100 points. I remembered that David Cameron admits to being an addict. I wonder if it helps him in his work. 'Great, just destroyed a pineapple! Reminds me, shall we send those grenades to the Syrian rebels?' "
Simon Hoggart
Great
Past
Me
" I've been intrigued by 'Le Monde' ever since work took me to Paris once, and I noted that on a day when there was some huge worldwide story, the paper led its front page on some cabinet changes in Turkey. It implied a magnificent disdain for the quotidian folderol of mere news. "
Simon Hoggart
Paris
Changes
Work
" British diplomats who worked in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis are deeply upset by Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning film 'Argo,' which suggests they refused shelter to the group who managed to get out of the U.S. embassy. "
Simon Hoggart
Upset
Out
Film
" I think Tony Blair has to come down on one side or the other. You can't be a half-hearted supporter of the possible attack on Iraq. You're either with George Bush or you're against him. "
Simon Hoggart
You
Attack
Down
" When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject. "
Simon Hoggart
Remember
Change
Political
" When you actually see Barack Obama, it's startling how slight he is and how young he looks. "
Simon Hoggart
He
How
Looks
" Kind 'Guardian' readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage. "
Simon Hoggart
Children
Christmas
Detail
" Watching the Commons tribute to Margaret Thatcher was like being suffocated inside a gigantic sticky toffee pudding, but one with nasty bogeys planted inside. There was much of the 'Margaret Thatcher who was lucky enough to know me,' especially from her own side of the House. "
Simon Hoggart
Enough
House
Know
" She is the first head of government in history to give a whole country its second childhood. "
Simon Hoggart
She
Government
Childhood
" The Tory party is like a rugby union match in which all 30 players are wearing the same strip. They're not sure who they are grabbing round the knees, but they're having a lot of fun doing it. "
Simon Hoggart
Party
Same
Rugby
" To be fair to the Inquisition, they only used confessions extracted after the torture had ended, which let them claim that admissions had been freely given; the fact that the torture would have started again if they hadn't confessed was a minor detail. "
Simon Hoggart
Detail
Started
Fair
" During my own gap year, I learned an invaluable lesson - that I was a lousy teacher. Even though the children I 'taught,' in upcountry Uganda, were desperate for qualifications, they largely ignored me. Until, that is, I realised that they wanted to hear about other young persons around the world. "
Simon Hoggart
Lesson
Teacher
World
" Most successful American politicians look well-fed on endorsements, campaign contributions and chicken dinners. "
Simon Hoggart
Successful
American
Chicken
" The Chinese do make vast quantities of wine for home consumption, but you wouldn't want to drink it yourself. "
Simon Hoggart
Home
Wine
You