Quotes from Gavin Esler

At seven years old, I won a scholarship to George Heriot's School, an independent school in Edinburgh, and I was there until I was 17.

When I visit universities in the U.A.E., the U.S. and across Europe, I see the faces of the leaders of tomorrow.

I want to stop Brexit.

My idea of heaven is being in Arizona, stuck up a mountain - somewhere where there are no phones.

The thing I love most about going to the Rocky Mountain National Park is that mobile phones don't work, and there's no electricity and no TV.

The Cold War, Bosnia and Ukraine remind us that peace is fragile. Iraq and Syria remind us that no society or culture is immune from conflict.

There is a common British delusion that we 'understand' America. We don't. Watching 'Friends' listening to Bruce Springsteen, eating at McDonald's and visiting Disneyland does not do it.

The U.S. Constitution has absorbed the end of slavery, the Civil War, Civil Rights and Watergate.

Once upon a time, America was a self-reliant John Wayne society where a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Now, America has become an over-lawyered society where nobody takes responsibility for mistakes because it is more profitable to claim victimhood and reach for a lawyer.

Public displays of puritanical religiosity mask the private perversions of the real Washington behind closed doors.

My taste in coffee has got better with age, and so has my taste in music.

I was going to do medicine at Edinburgh University - when I was three weeks old I nearly died, but they did an operation and I survived. It was a huge thing for my family - I was the first-born - and doctors were heroes, so I wanted to join them.

A British politician who cloaks himself in the mantle of God is immediately regarded with suspicion.

Democratic government is difficult. It is much more difficult than populists claim. It's not like running a business or a police force. It demands compromise.

Personally, I hope that we British continue to criticise America - just as I hope Americans will criticise us. That is what friends do.

Nigel Farage has got some strengths. He really connects with people. He is a very good talker. I find him very affable. I would very happily buy him a beer. And I am sure he would be happy with it to.

What mattered in the cold war was weight - how big are your missiles? How heavy are your tanks? What matters in globalisation is speed. How fast is your modem? How good are you communications?

There are people who appear on television who are paid for by shadowy think tanks whose financing they won't come clean about.

There's no doubt that prog rock has an image problem: many musicians hate the label, and too many people associate it with 10-minute drum solos and the weirder bits of JRR Tolkien.

The country I live in is never clear about its name. My passport says 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,' and citizens of the U.K. may call themselves British, English, Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland.

Maybe I should declare a bias. I like Americans. Always have. Always will.

If someone appears on television and makes a comment, and we quote that comment, we are being accurate. But are we actually being sensible if we don't know if that comment is based on any facts whatsoever? It is something that journalists have to be much more aware of.

I feel very fragile cycling in London, whereas in Berlin there are proper cycle paths everywhere.

My first day at Duddingston Primary is probably my first memory.