Christmas Every Day

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you’re a great writer, you must say that you are.

— Gore Vidal

“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”

— Nelson Algren

Always stand up when you’re making a difficult phone call. It gives you confidence.

— Christopher Middleton

Something that I learned through experience, after a bad relationship. People treat you according to how you ALLOW yourself to be treated. You can always say ‘no’ or walk away. Don’t be a victim. Don’t whinge. Deal with it or get out.

— Santa Sebag Montefiore

Eat a big elephant piece by piece. I say it to myself several times a day. It calms me down and lets me attend to what is in front of me rather than become overwhelmed by the big picture.

– Skye Gyngell

It actually came from my father. He said “Never do business with public schoolboys or Socialists”. The very worst people that I have ever dealt with in writing, publishing, and the BBC have been both public school and Socialists. My father also trained originally under his father as a butcher. He maintained that sausages should be eight to the pound, if larger they lost the subtlety of flavour and you were in fact paying “more for less”. He was right.

— Robin Page

Say yes to every opportunity you are offered, providing it’s legal. Accept every invitation, every new experience, every challenge, every holiday and adventure. Something good generally comes from it.

— Nicholas Coleridge

Get your children eating what they are given from the start, and save yourself years of mealtime hell.

— Prue Keith

Always ask! I learned this when I was 16 and summoned up the courage to ask out the prettiest girl in my glass. To my amazement, she accepted.

— Ed Victor

“Pizza is better without cheese”, which is literally true and metaphorically means: just because that’s the way things are generally done doesn’t mean it’s the best way.

— Peter Barron