Diaries: In Power

Quotes

1. I am confirmed in my opinion that it is hopeless here. All we can do is arm the Orangemen – to the teeth – and get out.

   p. 395

2. 

   I fell into conversation with Douglas. His is a split personality. À deux he is delightful; clever, funny, observant, drily cynical. But get him anywhere near "display mode", particularly if there are officials around, and he might as well have a corncob up his arse. Pompous, trite, high-sounding, cautiously guarded.

   p. 198

3. 

   I only can properly enjoy carol services if I am having an illicit affair with someone in the congregation. Why is this? Perhaps because they are essentially pagan, not Christian, celebrations.

   p. 125

4. 

   I want to fire the whole lot. Instantly. Out, out. No "District" commands, no golden bowlers, nothing. Out … If I could, I'd do what Stalin did to Tukhachevsky.

   p. 291

5. 

   "The trouble with [Michael] Heseltine is that he had to buy all his furniture." Snobby, but cutting.

6. 

   Pinkish toffs like Ian [Gilmour] and Charlie [Morrison], having suffered, for ten years, submission to their social inferior see in Michael [Heseltine] an arriviste, certainly, who can't shoot straight and in Jopling's damning phrase 'bought all his own furniture', but one who at any rate seeks the cachet. While all the nouves in the party think he (Michael) is the real thing.

7. 

   So what does it matter where it was when it was hit? We could have sunk it if it'd been tied up on the quayside in a neutral port and everyone would still have been delighted.

   p. 5

That’s all the quotes.

7 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more