Explore Quotes by A. A. Gill

Gifts are an important and necessary part of our collective lives. We need to give and we need to allow others to give.

Gift giving is one of the oldest forms of human interaction. It is a behaviour all cultures and all classes share.

It's not in the nature of stoic Cincinnatians to boast, which is fortunate, really, for they have meager pickings to boast about.

As handbags get ever more absurdly large, so they need to carry more stuff to validate the expense of this huge trunk with chains, buckles and padlocks on.

The problem with a man bag is that it's called a man bag.

The Lib-Dems are sidekicks. They were born to be sidekicks and that's what they should concentrate on being.

Other people's traditions look charming and decorative and exotic. They're nice places to visit on holiday, but you wouldn't want to live with one.

Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.

A lot of London's image never was. There never was a Dickensian London, or a Shakespearean London, or a swinging London.

Mr. Obama is the only popular politician left in the world. He would win an election in any one of the G-20 countries, and his fellow world leaders will do anything to take home a touch of that reflected popularity.

The London police have discovered that the best way to neuter demonstrations is not to move everyone on, or disperse troublemakers, but hold them close, cordon them into a diminishing space for hours and hours, as a sort of arbitrary al fresco arrest.

Mourning the loss of the phone call is like pining for buggy driving or women in hats or three-martini lunches. They've gone.

The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.

Have you ever wondered why the rich and privileged care about, or even bother with, the gift bag? Because they don't need this stuff. If they wanted it, they could afford to buy it, without blinking. But they love the gift bag, beyond reason.

Clothes maketh the man. They don't make you some other man.

For men, privacy means not being told stuff that would hurt. For women, secrecy is having stuff go on behind your back.

Have you noticed that almost all the change in the world goes to women? When was the last time you had a five pence piece? Exactly. In a Christmas pudding. All the rest of it is in women's handbags.

A cravat has to be approached with consummate self-confidence and a devilish nonchalance. A cravat has to be grasped by a man who knows how to treat a cravat.

In fact, everybody should wake up smelling nice. I go further, there is not an excuse, ever, not to smell nice, particularly your feet.

The trouble with righting some wrongs is that it makes the remaining ones seem even more unbearable.

Learning Jimmy Carr riffs off by heart is not the way to anyone's heart, unless you're Jimmy Carr. And remember, the two most attractive things in a man is a sense of danger and being able to make a girl feel really safe.