Quotes from Gyles Brandreth

The essence of democracy is that you can kick people out.

With a rowdy audience, the trick is not to go louder and try to beat them into submission. It's to go quieter. As they get loud, you get soft. Then they lean in towards you to listen.

I met Ian McKellen queueing for returns and he said, 'Are you wearing your tights under your trousers?' and I said, 'How on earth did you guess that?' and he said, 'Because I'm wearing mine.'

I have been an MP and government minister.

What's interesting is I don't think you will find anyone to say anything against Des O'Connor, he was the nicest of people and the ultimate professional and he made it look effortlessly easy.

I am the prince of procrastination. It is my besetting sin. I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after

Those who pay their bills on time are soon forgotten. It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

Praise makes me humble, but when I am abused, I know that I have touched the stars.

There is no friendship possible between men and women[...]. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

Don't switch off. Stay engaged. Resist distraction. Concentrate. Focus. Be present. Smell the coffee. Taste the food. Listen to the speech. Keep that Latin accurate. Stop thinking about what's coming next, stop checking the mobile, and relish what's happening now. Seize the day. For all you know, it's the only one you've got. Live in the moment.

One should always be suspicious of a woman who tells you that her past was burnt in the flames of a schoolhouse in Peshawar.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, zynders to zynders: even those who protest that they never go to funerals have to in the end.

Punctuation is important, but the rules are changing. Spelling is important today in a way that it wasn't when Shakespeare was a boy. Grammar isn't set in stone.

Change is the salt in the soup of life.

To err is human. To arr is pirate … What a difference a single misplaced letter can make.

In life there are two types of people: those who catch the waiter's eye and those who don't.

Oscar sat back and looked at me appraisingly. "I need to think. And to think I must have oysters and champagne.

Without the Oxford comma, you can give people the wrong idea. Famously, the London Times newspaper once ran a brief description of a television documentary featuring Peter Ustinov, promising: Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.

La personalidad es algo muy misterioso. No puede valorarse a un hombre por lo que hace. Puede cumplir la ley y ser despreciable. Puede incumplir la ley y aun así ser un caballero. Puede ser malo sin haber hecho nunca nada malo. Puede cometer un pecado contra la sociedad y tomar conciencia, gracias a ese pecado, de su propia perfección...

Sir Peter Tapsell: 'You cannot ask the British Prime Minister to autograph a bottle of table wine. You really cannot.' 'It is English,' I bleated. 'Non-vintage?' 'Er … yes.' 'Good God, what is the party coming to?

Honi soit qui mal y pense' – 'Shame on him who thinks evil of this.' The phrase

It is curious how men who are good friends, close friends, true friends, who may have been on the most intimate and familiar terms over any number of years, can nevertheless know next to nothing of one another's love-lives.

A secret should be kept a secret," murmured Conan Doyle, now picking up crumbs from his plate with his forefinger. "Once it is no longer a secret, it becomes a serpent—it goes where it will.

I love the old, but I'm intrigued by the new. And sometimes excited by it, too.