Top 50 Gyles Brandreth Quotes

I have been an MP and government minister.

To me Prince Philip was a hero and a role model – and a friend.

Now I’m just loving the world of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle so much. I really wouldn’t want to go back into the world of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling – where would the fun and adventure be in that?

They’re supposed to cure everything. Want a baby? Have a Brandreth pill. Don’t want a baby? Have a Brandreth pill.

Business is not my forte.

Princess Anne is like her father. From her, you’ll never hear a complaint of any kind about her upbringing.

If you were doing a Des O’Connor show, you were in safe hands.

When I was an MP, John Prescott barracked me in the House of Commons, shouting: ‘Woolly jumper! Woolly jumper!’

I think the Duke of Edinburgh would have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to his death.

Among the upper classes, especially three or four generations ago, men and women had separate bedrooms. That’s just the way it was.

If you’re the Queen you don’t need to say anything and you don’t get into trouble. If you’re the Duke of Edinburgh you say a lot of things, sometimes too many, and you do get into trouble.

Was Prince Philip in love when he proposed to Elizabeth? At the time, he was a relatively penniless prince, with a rackety family and no home to call his own.

Prince Philip had formally ‘retired’ in the summer of 2017, a couple of months after his 96th birthday, because the Queen encouraged him to do so. She wanted to stop him ‘pushing himself all the time’. She had become anxious about him.

I don’t want to jeopardize my relationship with royalty by saying too much.

When I was an MP, I worked at the department where we gave honors to people from the arts world, I was quite keen.

In many ways, Prince Philip was remarkably good-humored and long-suffering.

Contrary to the popular caricature of him, the Duke of Edinburgh was neither judgmental nor unfeeling.

I know that the Duke of Edinburgh’s rule was, ‘Don’t talk about yourself, don’t give personal interviews.’ I know that, and I know he told his children that because he told me.

Greyfriars School is like Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter stories and the whole world of magic is the world of J.M.Barrie.

Several people have told me that Queen Elizabeth made slighting comments about Philip within their hearing, and referred to him – not entirely humorously – as ‘the Hun.’

‘An Audience With Kenneth Williams.’ My wife and I went with him to the recording. He was paid £10,000, the largest fee he had ever received and was so nervous he was shaking. But his performance was matchless. He knew it was the best thing he’d ever done.

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.

When I was 11, at prep school, I was starring in the school play, editing the school magazine and standing as Conservative candidate for the 1959 mock election.

I have been a print journalist.

I regularly dream about the Queen. Apparently, millions of people do. I wonder who she dreams about?

I don’t poo-pooh anyone’s knighthood or other honors.

A humorous quotation is a little window on the world that gives life a comic twist.

Not only did I cross-dress at 10, playing Rosalind in ‘As You Like It,’ I also found myself in a cross-dressed part at 60, when I played Lady Bracknell in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’

In fact, when I shake hands with all those wonderful people at the Stratford Literary Festival, they will be shaking hands with the hand that shook the hand of Oscar Wilde.

What happened between the sheets on the night of the royal wedding I cannot tell you. I was not there.

When I was a boy, I began writing a biography of Shakespeare, and since then I’ve written a number of biographies of actors and famous people.

Indeed, the Duke of Edinburgh’s disdain for his eldest son was all the more shocking because he made little or no attempt to hide it.

There is an invisible moat around the senior royals.

Quite out of proportion to the size of the country, British children’s writers swept the world in the 20th century. We should celebrate them.

My introduction to the Queen was disconcerting, to say the least. ‘This is Gyles Brandreth,’ said the Duke of Edinburgh cheerily. ‘Apparently, he’s writing about you.’

We loved the line ‘I’m a luxury… few can afford.’ It still makes me smile. It’s a jumper for people with a sense of style and a sense of humor.

First and foremost, I am a writer. That’s what I have spent my life doing.

I was lucky enough to know Prince Philip in his prime – the most dynamic man I have ever met. And I was privileged to know him almost to the end.

Prince Philip is conscious of his place in the heritage of the Royal Family.

It was Napoleon who said if you want to understand a man, look at the world as it was when he was 20. When the Queen and the Duke were in their early 20s, it’s around 1940. Their values are the values of Britain in 1940; all that is best of Britain in 1940 is exemplified by the Duke.

It’s called ‘Odd Boy Out’ because as I was writing it I realized I was a bit of an oddity as a child.

For centuries in Britain, the small-talk standby has been the weather.

I suppose I am instinctively flirtatious. But not exclusively to women. I want to be liked.

People confuse being full of words with being terribly intelligent and informed.

Being made redundant is a personal tragedy.

I’d known the Duke of Edinburgh over a period of 40 years, so I’d long been accustomed to his sense of humor.

I mean, I am relatively pleased with myself and the world. But I don’t assume that I’m liked.

I told Prince Philip that, having met them both, I was struck, not by the differences between him and Charles, but by their similarities.

I’m happy inside my own skin.

I’ve learnt that you’ve got to accept the audience you’ve got.