In his own words
‘The man who invented the red carpet needed his head examined’
ON VISIT TO BRAZIL, 1968
‘If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed’
TO BRITISH STUDENTS IN CHINA, 1986
‘If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it’
AT 1986 WWF MEETING
‘It looks as if it was put in by an Indian’
POINTING AT OLD FUSEBOX IN EDINBURGH FACTORY, 1999
‘You have mosquitoes. I have the press’
TO HOSPITAL MATRON IN THE CARIBBEAN, 1966
‘How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?’
TO DRIVING INSTRUCTOR IN SCOTLAND, 2002
‘Constitutionally I don’t exist’
JANUARY 2011
‘You can’t have been here that long – you haven’t got a pot belly’
TO BRITISH VISITOR IN BUDAPEST, 1993
‘Books are certainly old-fashioned, but only people with a very limited perception are silly enough to condemn ideas because of their age’
‘DO BOOKS MATTER?’ 1973