88 Quotes by Craig Brown

Somewhere in the back of their minds, hosts and guests alike know that the dinner party is a source of untold irritation, and that even the dullest evening spent watching television is preferable.

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

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.

Often, I grow irritated before the first tile has been placed on the Scrabble board. This generally occurs when one of my opponents has insisted upon bringing a dictionary to the table, making it clear that he will be consulting it throughout the game.

Speaking for myself, I spend a good ten minutes a day deciding whether or not to read the results of new surveys, and, once I have read them, a further five minutes deciding whether or not to take them seriously.

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

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

There are some deals to be made right now. Some people don't want to rebuild. And they don't want the headaches. But it's not as valuable as it will be in the future.

Whenever television cameras are interviewing people in their homes, I tend to look over their shoulders and have a good snoop at their living rooms. I am always astonished at how clean they all look, with nothing out of place or unnecessary or dropped down any old how.