The Lib-Dems are sidekicks. They were born to be sidekicks and that's what they should concentrate on being.
— A. A. Gill
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.
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.
The part that makes you unique is the bit people will like or fear, fall in love with, or try to avoid.
The answer is that if God exists, he doesn't seem to mind if you believe in him or not.
People who know there is a god and people who know there isn't live in exactly the same world. Same number of hours in the day, same weather, same football results. They both love their children and die of the same diseases.
People collect boredom, they hoard it, they wallow in it, hoping that one day it'll be of interest and become an effete ennui. Let me tell you, it doesn't.
This is the trouble with cheating: there are no acceptable rules, or laws. It could be a smile, or dancing to a song that you considered to be indefinably 'ours'. It can feel like cheating to go to a restaurant that you used to go to with someone else. Keeping photographs of exes can infuriate, like retrospective cheating.
I tell you, once a girl's got a dose of novels she's a pushover for iambic pentameter.
So much of life is not about whether you're good or bad, or right or wrong, or can afford or not afford - it's just about timing.
Shorts are silly. Men in shorts are silly men. And silly is the very worst thing a man can be.
Nature gave you your look and there's only a limited amount you can do about that, but what you wear is the skin you choose for yourself.
Personal adornment is the only cultural form that everybody in the world takes part in.
I don't do dinner parties. I have people come to share the food I've cooked for the family.
I'm terribly prone to anxiety. I get very depressed and I get very anxious and my anxiety is almost always about my children.
Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.
A cravat is the only item of named after Croatians. Balkan mercenaries were brought to Paris by Louis XIV. Their strange and exotic attire attracted the French bon hommes, who were wearing formal ruffs, and who immediately took to the simple and relaxed military cloth tied at the neck.
The trouble with righting some wrongs is that it makes the remaining ones seem even more unbearable.
So, being a good man is not an exam or a qualification, it changes, and it incorporates being a good friend, a good father, a good employee, a good boss, a good neighbour and a good citizen.
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 real question is: if you knew there was a god, would you behave any differently? And if the answer is yes, then perhaps you should assume there is.
The more there is on offer, the more you don't want. Fifty options of cereal does not hone an epicurean expertise in the finer points of puffed rice, it murders appetite.
Boredom is not a thing. It's not a feeling or a condition. It is the absence of feelings, things and conditions.
Bald isn't like being ethnic or disabled. Everyone can and will make jokes about it and expect you to laugh good-naturedly, which you will.
Twenty is a tough age because it slips past in the middle of so much else - university, gap year, leaving home, getting jobs.
Cowboy boots you can't wear unless you actually are a cowboy or in a Status Quo tribute band, or over 60; there's something about a retiring gent in cowboy boots that looks sort of presidential.
It is impossible to be taken seriously in shorts. No one has ever cared about anything said by a man in shorts.
Everyone has to go to a funeral at some time and you need to be dark and sombre, and in a black tie.
All people from small islands dance funny.
Writing, for me, is the great organiser. It's while writing that I think most deeply about things.
I don't go to the openings of shops or parties given by people I don't know.
When I joined the Sunday Times the people I was competing with were all 10 or 15 years younger, they all had double firsts from Oxford or Cambridge, they were all bright as new pins.
The only acceptable cravat is the original Croat one.
Penicillin and plastic bags help a lot, fridges and hot water make manliness more comfortable and Tom Ford's fragrance range makes it smell better, but the idea that has pushed our lives into the light more than any other -ism or -ology is feminism.
Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.
I don't know if English is the only language where some expressions only and solely mean the opposite of what they say but we do have an awful lot of them.
People who don't believe in God are no happier than people who do, and those who do believe are no nicer than those who don't.
If you're bored, it's because someone else is fulfilling his dream. Become a bore. It's the most interesting thing you'll ever do.
My only piece of advice is that all of you consider every single text and Snapchat that you ever make as also being shared with your partner, because they all check your phones all the time - trust me on this one.
Songs are all poetry, and they don't make any sense.
There are five great ages of man - five moments when you need to reevaluate everything, clear out the cupboard and the wardrobe, and most importantly, your head. They are 13, 20, 30, 40 and 60. All men need to know this.
You can propose marriage naked or in handcuffs, but no one is going to agree to forsake all others for a man in shorts. You can't declare war in shorts or deliver a eulogy in shorts.
No 13-year-old or over should ever be seen in trousers that finish above the ankle. It doesn't matter how good your legs are, or if you're on a beach in Bermuda where they invented the things.
And learn to tie a bow - it's not difficult and there's no excuse for either a clip-on or the hideous Hollywood straight tie.
I'm frightened of my innate vanity. I mean: the suits lined with scarves? Even I know the warning signs. I could quite easily end up in a tiny Playboy mansion, all on my own.
I can tell very quickly when people are lying.
I don't remember ever stealing things, but I suppose I was endlessly borrowing money off people.
