20th-century Broadcaster Quotes

If God had meant us to go metric, why did he give Christ twelve apostles?

Gyles Brandreth

And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait Because I have a luncheon date.

I don't know very many people who were able to say at a young age, "I'm going to do this" and do it, and it just kind of all went that way. It's pretty much unpredictable and a random path. You can't really control the circumstances of your life, you can only control what you do with it, how you react, how you respond, how you hold it. … What I do control is what I do with what happens, and I try to keep a positive attitude, not always easy, and I try to focus on what my mission, core mission is. And that helps you more than anything else if you know what your mission is.

Fish have water, the bushmen of the Kalahari have sand, and Houstonians have interior décor.

We are all born naked into this world, but each of us is fully clothed in potential.

You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.

(Roberto) Clemente could field the ball in New York and throw out a guy in Pennsylvania.

I suppose we all tend to remember only the happiness from our childhood, as a sundial refuses to tell the time except in fine weather.

.... well with me now is Geoffrey Robinson. He was once voted 'After-dinner Speaker of the Year', so if you've had your tea, you're in for a treat

I saw 'New Labour'conceived, watched it gestate, witnessed its birth and growth. Now I fervently hope I will be present at its death.

George Galloway

In the face of such overwhelming statistical possibilities, hypochondria has always seemed to me to be the only rational position to take on life.

If you have a stomach ache, in France you get a suppository, in Germany a health spa, in the United States they cut your stomach open and in Britain they put you on a waiting list.

Phil Hammond (doctor)

They ate a pig's anus? Oh, come on. I have to tell you there is nothing there to eat. Is it fair? I think the pig is past caring whether it is fair or not. Look, my view is that any bloody fool can be uncomfortable. I don't go into harrowing circumstances for fun or entertainment. I mean, I am not a hair-shirt guy.

David Attenborough

I have always thought that one of the signs of natural leaders of men (and women) was their readiness to take the necessary pains to keep their followers with them.

You will find a blacker world on death row than anywhere else. African-Americans, a mere 11 percent of the national population, compose about 40 percent of the death row population. There, too, you will find this writer.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

In many ways, religion comes from the same place in us that art comes from. The language of the human heart if poetry

I cannot help being happy. I've struggled against it but to no good. Apart from an odd five minutes here and there, I have been happy all my life. There is, I am well aware, no virtue whatever in this. It results from a combination of heredity, health, good fortune, and shallow intellect.

Arthur Marshall

The BBC is rather like a cross between the Church of England and the Post Office.

The use of God in moral debate is so problematic as to be almost worthless.

Richard Holloway

The world is a stage we walk upon. We are all in a way fictional characters who write ourselves with our beliefs.

Television makes so much at its worst that it can't afford to do its best.

Fred W. Friendly

Animals are murdered to produce meat; vegetables are torn up, peeled, and chopped; most of what we eat is treated with fire; and chewing is designed remorselessly to finish what killing and cooking began. People naturally prefer that none of this should happen to them. Behind every rule of table etiquette lurks the determination of each person present to be a diner, not a dish.

Margaret Visser

We tread a fine line between taking ourselves seriously and being Spinal Tap.

Bruce Dickinson

I suppose that if your name is Freud, it is better to be related to Sigmund than not. It must be frustrating to have to keep denying family connection.

A visual experience is vitalizing. Whereas to write great poetry, to draw continuously on one's inner life, is not merely exhausting, it is to keep alight a consuming fire.