Giles Coren Quotes

I would go swaggering into restaurants in some ridiculous tramp disguise, challenging them to mistreat me, order the things I was least likely to enjoy, then hurl my plate aside in a fury and demand to see the manager.
GILES COREN

Challenge Demand Disguise Hurt Likely Manager Mistreat Order Plate Restaurant Ridiculous Swagger Think Tramp
Of course you can get a decent mouthful of food in New York. You can get a decent mouthful of food in Nairobi.
GILES COREN

Country Course Denied Food Mouthful Nairobi
Where my dad taught me everything about writing, Graham Paterson, who gave me my first job at The Times, taught me everything about journalism, which is that it’s no big deal, and it’s more important to have a glass of wine.
GILES COREN

Dad Everything First Job Laugh Person Taught Time
I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.
GILES COREN

Angry Back Blush Critic Day Early Late Think Use
It was fine for my Polish Ashkenazi forebears to live on dumplings and potatoes, because they laboured in the fields. But that diet is unsuitable for an urban lifestyle.
GILES COREN

Country Dumpling Field Fine Forebear Labour Lifestyle People Polish Potato Unsuitable Urban
I’m not a mad, crazy foodie. But I have strong opinions and I know a lot about food.
GILES COREN

Crazy Food Foodie Mad Opinion Strong
I used to be a very angry person, I used to throw things and break them. Then I had five years of constant psycho-analysis, and I don’t get angry any more.
GILES COREN

Analysis Angry Break Constant Five Person Physio Thing Use Year
I let the other reviewers eat the bad meals, so that I didn’t have to, and my wife and I went out only for the good stuff. And I wrote mostly positive reviews. Not only. But mostly. And, ooooh, it felt an awful lot better.
GILES COREN

Awful Better Feel Felt Good Mostly Review Stuff Wife Wrote
We built walls around them with slits through which to fire arrows at scary, cross-eyed rural people, and brought our food and family inside because they were the safest places to be.
GILES COREN

Arrow Brought Build Cross Family Food Inside People Place Rural Safety Scary Wall
I always say what I think to be amusing.
GILES COREN

Always Anything Say Thing
When I was 16 my dad taught me to drive too. Furiously. Unable to understand why I couldn’t already do it – for driving, to him, was innate in the human. It was what separated us from the apes. And from the French, who weren’t much good at it either.
GILES COREN

Country Drive Either Furious Good Innate Separate Taught Unable Understand
You can get a decent mouthful of food in Warsaw or Chad if you look hard enough. It’s just I wouldn’t actually go there looking for the food.
GILES COREN

Actual Decent Enough Food Hard Lok Mouthful Wound
My sister’s also very, very competitive but she is more concerned than I am with being liked. So she hides it away. I try to make my competitiveness part of my charm.
GILES COREN

Being Charm Competitive Competitiveness Concern More Most Try World
My time in Paris was an education in both the grimness of a relentless, grinding day job and the joys of nights in glittering restaurants.
GILES COREN

Both Day Education Glitter Grimness Grind Job Joy Relentless Restaurant Time
The first thing I remember is that my dad had a big iron Olivetti typewriter and he worked all night.
GILES COREN

Big Dad First Iron Night Olivetti Remember Thing Typewriter Work
The good fortune of my life, which has been to turn those glittering nights into my job, all came from there.
GILES COREN

Came Fortune Glitter Good Job Life Night There Tyrn
I sleep nine hours every night, I have a little nap after lunch, and, if I’m going out for dinner, I sneak in an extra one before I head out.
GILES COREN

Dinner Every Extra Head Hour Little Nap Night Nine Out Sleep Sneak
I have Gordon Ramsay to thank for my TV career because Channel 4 spent a long time trying to find him a sidekick for ‘The F Word’, then he suggested me, knowing I’d stand up to him.
GILES COREN

Career Channel Know People Sidekick Spent Stand Suggest
People think you get paid millions by the BBC if you’re famous, but me? Me, I’m in the Premier Inn in Gillingham.
GILES COREN

Bbc Country Million Paid People Premier Think
It doesn’t matter how much of a hurry you think you are in. Be one of the people for whom ten minutes does not make a difference.
GILES COREN

Difference Hurry Matter Minute Much One Ten Think
I think unionization of labour is a great thing.
GILES COREN

Greta Labor Thing Think Unionization
I always feel quite Jewish but I used to deny it until I was in my twenties.
GILES COREN

Always Quite Deny Jewish Twenties Use
Personally I ride a bicycle, travel by train and bus and campaign tirelessly for a car taxation system that will hammer ignorant, selfish, petty, fat, spoilt, stupid car abusers into giving up their addiction and walking.
GILES COREN

Abuse Campaign Car Hammer Ignorant Pretty Ride Selfish System Talk Taxation Tirelessly Travel Walk
I’m just a bit frustrated that in London we make such an effort to ape the New York restaurant scene. I have good friends who ape the New York restaurant scene and do it brilliantly. None of them would claim that the primary reason for going to their restaurant was the food.
GILES COREN

Ape Country Effort Frustrated Line Restaurant Scene
As a broadly left-wing, environmentally aware urban believer in anthropogenic global warming, I am all for a total ban on motor vehicles.
GILES COREN

Anthropogenic Aware Ban Believer Environment Left Motor Urban Vehicle Wing
How clever am I? I’m really quite clever. I mean, look, I’ve got a first-class degree from Oxford.
GILES COREN

Class Clever Country Degree First Look Mean
My dad is the best and funniest newspaper columnist. There is nobody anywhere near as good.
GILES COREN

Anywhere Best Columnist Dad Funny Good Newspaper Nobody

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