Quotes from Jeremy Paxman

Authors like Martin Amis, Peter Ackroyd or Julian Barnes engage with metropolitan subject-matter, but the books that sell by the container-load are historical romances. The upper classes may have lost their political power, but they still manage to set the social tone and determine the aspirations of the ambitious.

The moment a Frenchman opens his mouth, he declares his identity. The French speak French. The English speak a language which belongs to no one.

To believe that any intellectual position is worth dying or killing for is a leap no English academic could make. It is a cliché that there are no intellectuals in England. It is also untrue. But if you are going to be an intellectual in England, you had better do it discreetly, and certainly not call yourself an intellectual. It does not do to grow passionate about your beliefs or to believe that every problem has a solution.

It's stupid to have a simple-minded view.

It's not just politicians. Any spokesman for a vested interest is well schooled in how to say what it is they wish to say, which may bear no relation at all to what you've asked them.

One's teachers all belonged to that generation who were imperialists, and the whole narrative throughout my adolescence was of countries leaving the empire. I find it extraordinary that this purpose which drove how we viewed the world is now considered to be something that has no effect upon us.