Haywire Quotes

“True to character, John Lennon taunted him about the memoir. When Epstein was wondering out loud what to call it, Lennon said: ‘Why don’t you call it “Queer Jew”?’ Later, when Epstein said it was called ‘A Cellarful of Noise’, Lennon replied that he would be better off calling it ‘A Cellarful of Boys’.”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

“Benn mentioned a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador: ‘I said, “I’m a great admirer of Mao. He made mistakes, because everybody does, but it seems to me that the development of the countryside and so on was very sensible …”’ As it happens, forty-five million died as a result of Mao’s enforced famines in the countryside.”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

“when Benn kicks off a conversation with Gorbachev by saying he was in Parliament for fifty years, Gorby simply replies, ‘How boring that must have been!”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

“I felt the same sense of squeamishness on behalf of Frankie Howerd. In life, the great comedian was always embarrassed by his baldness, so took to wearing a singularly ill-fitting toupee. ‘He was the only one convinced that it was practically impossible to see the join,’ observed his biographer, Graham McCann.”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

“Most of his opinions were really just excuses for jokes about the absurdity of having opinions.”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

“Only those who are too cowardly or conceited to have their ideas of the world challenged by jokes – in short, only those without a sense of humour – could fail to see that this was the whole point of him.”
― Craig Brown, Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown