From Winston Churchill’s love of lunch to Jerry Hall’s advice for lovemaking and the late Queen’s withering view of football, a new book serves up a selection of deliciously sharp and dazzling quotes from our most esteemed public figures

From Winston Churchill’s love of lunch to Jerry Hall‘s advice for lovemaking and the late Queen’s withering view of football, a new book serves up a selection of deliciously sharp and dazzling quotes from our most esteemed public figures.

Love & Loving

‘Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again’ – U.S. sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein

‘Over a decade or so, the rhythm of most couples’ sex lives goes from tri-weekly to try weekly to try weakly.’ – Satirist Victor Lewis-Smith

‘Women are programmed to love completely and men are programmed to spread it around. We are fools to think it’s any different.’ – Novelist Beryl Bainbridge

‘You know ‘that look’ women get when they want sex? Me neither.’ – Steve Martin

‘We had a lot in common. I loved him and he loved him.’ – Actress Shelley Winters on her ex-husband

‘A man desires a woman, but a woman desires the desire of a man.’ – Madame de Stael, eminent salon hostess in Napoleonic France

‘It’s only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realise how much you love them.’ – Agatha Christie

‘When choosing between two evils, I always pick the one I haven’t tried before.’ – Hollywood actress Mae West

‘There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.’ – U.S. writer PJ O’Rourke

‘Mama told me, be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a mistress in the bedroom. But I hire someone to be a maid and someone to cook, so I can take care of the rest.’ – Jerry Hall

Cashing in

‘Too many people spend money they don’t have on things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.’ – U.S. humorist Will Rogers

‘A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.’ – Bob Hope

‘All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.’ – Spike Milligan

‘There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it and when he can.’ – Mark Twain

‘The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.’ – U.S. investor Charlie Munger

Secrets

‘A secret is something that is only repeated to one person at a time.’ – Writer Robert McCrum

‘He that has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.’ – Philosopher Thomas Carlyle

Celebrity status

‘The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it’s their fault.’ – Henry Kissinger

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognised.’ – U.S. comedian Fred Allen

‘There are two kinds of great men: the little great men, who make all those around them feel little, and the great great men, who make all those around them feel great.’ – Writer G.K. Chesterton

‘When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.’ – Unknown but sometimes attributed to Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill’s mother

‘Malibu is the only place in the world where you can lie on the sand and look at the stars or, if you’re lucky, vice versa.’ – U.S. comedian Joan Rivers

The secret of happiness

‘Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.’ – U.S. comedian George Burns

‘We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we’re happy because we laugh.’ – U.S. philosopher William James

‘Puritanism . . . the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.’ – U.S. satirist H.L. Mencken

‘If ignorance is bliss, this boy is in for a life of undiluted happiness.’ – School report quoted in a letter to The Times

‘When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.’ – Mae West

‘A lifetime of happiness? No man could bear it.’ – George Bernard Shaw

‘The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.’ – Mark Twain

‘If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.’ – Actress Katharine Hepburn

‘My grandmother told me to find something nice to say about everyone and say it.’ – Jilly Cooper

‘Three things in life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.’ – U.S. novelist Henry James

Marriage

‘I am a marvellous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.’ – Zsa Zsa Gabor

‘My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.’ – U.S. comedian Rodney Dangerfield

‘A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.’ – Novelist Terry Pratchett

‘Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same’. – Oscar Wilde

‘Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you.’ – French biologist Jean Rostand

How to get by

‘Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.’ – Dolly Parton

‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.’ – U.S. comedian W.C. Fields

‘Always fly first class. Or your children will.’ – Jeremy Clarkson

‘The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.’ – Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic

‘It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.’ – W. Somerset Maugham

‘You don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.’ – Boxing promoter Don King

Advice? No thanks!

‘We are never so generous as when giving advice.’ – French 17th-century moralist Francois de La Rochefoucauld

‘I always pass on good advice. It’s the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.’ – Oscar Wilde

‘I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.’ – U.S. President Harry Truman

‘Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.’ – World War II U.S. general George Patton

Social life

‘If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come and sit next to me.’ – U.S. socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth

‘Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won’t be invited to cocktail parties.’ – Oscar Wilde

‘You must come again when you have less time.’ – Painter Walter Sickert to a departing guest

Business brains

‘When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven’t.’ – Thomas Edison

‘Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.’ – U.S. poet Suzy Kassem

‘Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.’ – Bill Belichick, American football coach

‘Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.’ – U.S. playwright Wilson Mizner

‘The one thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.’ – Prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn

‘A good leader is someone who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.’ – U.S. author John C. Maxwell

‘I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.’ – Novelist Jerome K. Jerome

‘The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.’ – U.S. investor Warren Buffett

The glass is half-empty

‘The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.’ – U.S. columnist George Will

‘A pessimist is a man who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.’ – Canadian writer Laurence J. Peter

‘Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.’ – George Bernard Shaw

Friends and enemies

‘You will become way less concerned what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.’ – U.S. writer David Foster Wallace

‘Never speak ill of yourself. Your friends will say enough on that subject.’ – Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, 17th-century French statesman

‘Charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people.’ – U.S. photographer Richard Avedon

‘Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.’ – French philosopher Simone Weil

‘You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.’ – Audrey Hepburn

‘Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.’ – Gore Vidal

‘One must not be a name-dropper, as Her Majesty remarked to me yesterday.’ – Tory politician Norman St John-Stevas

‘Nothing gives one person so great an advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.’ – U.S. founding father Thomas Jefferson

‘Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.’ – Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell

‘Usually when one weeps, one weeps for oneself. That’s the terrible truth.’ – TV critic Clive James

‘Very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.’ – Journalist Christopher Hitchens

‘Whatever you may be sure of, be sure at least of this: that you are dreadfully like other people.’ – U.S. poet and critic James Russell Lowell

‘Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.’ – Poet W.H. Auden

The grim reaper

‘When I die, I want to go peacefully like my grandfather did — in his sleep. Not yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car.’ – Comedian Bob Monkhouse

On February 6, 1952, King George VI died in his sleep after a day of shooting at Sandringham. ‘I hope you will arrange something like that for me,’ Winston Churchill later told his doctor. ‘But don’t do it till I tell you.’

Writers and writing

‘Jane Austen is Mills and Boon written by a genius.’ – Crime novelist P.D. James

‘I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.’ – Mathematician Blaise Pascal

‘I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend . . . if you have one.’ – George Bernard Shaw

‘Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.’ – Winston Churchill

‘Make ’em cry, make ’em laugh, make ’em wait.’ – Victorian novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins

‘This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.’ – Dorothy Parker in a book review

The young

‘There’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended. They wouldn’t have won the war, would they?’ – Actor Robbie Coltrane

‘Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.’ – Oscar Wilde

The world and how we see it

‘By the time a man realises that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong.’ – U.S. pianist Charles Wadsworth

‘The French, unlike — and this cannot be said often enough — the Germans, hate the English. They hate us because in war we have never been defeated. While they, since the battle of Leipzig in 1813, have never been victorious.’ – MP and diarist Alan Clark

‘Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book.’ – Roman statesman Cicero

M’learned friend

‘A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a brief.’ – Franz Kafka

‘A bad lawyer is one who can make a case stretch on for ages. A good one can make it go on even longer.’ – Victoria Dowd (a lawyer)

Politics

‘Under capitalism, man exploits man, while under communism it’s the other way round.’ – Old Czech joke

‘Communism is the longest path from capitalism to capitalism.’ – Old Russian joke

Shaw sent Churchill two tickets for the first night of his latest play with a note that read “Please bring a friend, if you have one.”

‘Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.’ – Winston Churchill (pictured)