Quotes from Auberon Waugh

My own theory is that the spectacle of the homeless may be necessary to keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow...

It is impossible to be angry for very long with a man who wears a wig.

Strange how much simple wisdom there is to be found in the deformed head and unprepossessing carcase of your typical London cabbie.

At any rate it seems unlikely that there is any truth in the rumour as I have just this moment invented it.

When Glenda Jackson reveals that she has never been in a relationship with a man in which he hasn't raised his fists to her, I don't know whether this tells us more about the contemporary male or about Glenda Jackson.

At the Serima Mission, in Victoria Province, I am shown around by an enchantingly pretty African nun called Sister Balbina...She cannot be more than 25, and has the most delightful figure. How poignant that she should have dedicated her life in this way. When we come to the bell tower, I ask her to climb up the ladder in front of me.It was rather a caddish request, I suppose, but I had often wondered. Black petticoats and pink knickers. To think I had to come all this way to find out.

It is just a lonely certainty that we are right and everybody else wrong, which makes it worthwhile for us busy-bodies to go on making a nuisance of ourselves. Our job is to keep both the simple Philistine and the greedy rich in their places, to prevent them, in their stupidity and avarice, from destroying everything that is left.

He looked like the victim of a forceps delivery.

I am much bigger than the average chicken, and furthermore I was armed with a rolling pin and kitchen knife. As a matter of fact I have always had the greatest contempt for chickens. They are so stupid that they probably don't even notice the difference when they die, but I must admit that this particular chicken put up a very good fight.

Anyone in England who puts himself forward to be elected to a position of political power is almost bound to be socially or emotionally insecure, or criminally motivated, or mad.

the modern State's greatest single instrument of oppression, its murderous tax on drink...accounts for nearly all the miseries besetting our once-merry land; football hooliganism, colour prejudice, industrial unrest, cynicism about politicians; the list is endless.

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir?

I should imagine that in my time I have eaten enough horses to provide a royal escort.

I try to believe everything I read in the newspapers, but I had difficulty with last week's account of the London vagrant who was found, after death, to be carrying £1,500 in small change in his socks. My reason for doubting the story is that I, too, like to carry small change in my socks, but I have found that with more that £15 or £20 worth it becomes impossible to walk.

I was shocked to read that Lord Ferrers, a Home Office minister, when booked for speeding and presented with a £40 fixed penalty with three penalty points, them wrote to the Suffolk police to thank them for catching him. There is a sickness in England. If his lordship appreciates punishment so much, it was unkind just to fine him. He should have been caned, with his trousers down, by the side of the road.

I remember also speaking to a reporter on Gay News who enquired about my attitude to Gay Dogs and reassuring him of my compassionate attitude to homosexuality among dogs, while secretly feeling they ought to be whipped.

An unemployed electrician,whom I had been taunting with my reminder of how much richer I was, leaned forward and said:'What are your qualifications? I know exactly what your qualifications are.You bent over in the shower to pick up some soap at Eton and Harrow, like all the rest of them.

The rest of us learned the simple lesson - invaluable in a bureaucratic society - that there is no moral or practical obligation to tell the truth when filling in forms.

You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.

Strange how much simple wisdom there is to be found in the deformed head and unprepossessing carcase of your typical London cabbie.