Category: people

“It’s unusual for a tribe or breed to have such a definitive beginning, but all agree that Brummell was It. This Englishman of middle-class birth climbed into Regency-era aristocratic circles based on no more than his verbal wit and the eloquence of his dress.”

“The 51-year-old [comedian] is seeking the Labour nomination for Mayor of London in 2019 and if he does not get the endorsement he hopes to stand as an MP.”

“The prime chronicler of the jazz age – a term he coined – came up around the same time that the American movie industry did, and spent much of his career linked with Hollywood. But Fitzgerald’s intellectual snobbery and Puritanical prudery made for a strained relationship with the film world, one that began as dismissive and ended as dependent.”

“Amazingly, you played such an immense role in my life almost entirely through your letters. They were just words, but they were words written with care and attention and with the thought of a particular individual in mind.”

“Whether or not I deserved the Nobel Prize, I already received it, and now it’s time to get back to my writing desk and produce a good work. I hear that the 2013 list of Nobel Prize nominees has been finalized. I hope that once the new laureate is announced, no one will pay attention to me anymore.”

“Together with Richard Attenborough, he set up Beaver Films in 1959. … His directing career began in 1961 with Whistle Down the Wind, featuring child star Hayley Mills.” Among the many films he helmed during the 1960s and ’70s were Seance on a Wet Afternoon and The Stepford Wives.

You never thought of Der Bingle as being in the vanguard of anything, did you? Well, it turns out that – as a media star and as an investor – he was crucial to the development of the tech industry, both in general and as a mainstay of northern California.

It seemed a miracle to me that the person trapped in this body was still such a stunning pianist. Yet when I asked him how long he expected to be able to continue playing, he said, “Forever.”

“People laugh at truth. They don’t laugh at cheap gags – they laugh deepest and loudest at their own foibles. The same is true in drama: they are looking to recognise human behaviour.”