Ian Hislop Quotes

#1. You end up with this succession of periods when everything was marvellous - from King Arthur to the medieval times, Ivanhoe, chivalry, Henry VIII, Merry England, the Blitz

Ian Hislop

#2. No, there are no hard and fast rules about sources, no printed booklet to help journalists through.

Ian Hislop

#3. There's an awful lot of terrible television which I could do, but I mostly stick to Have I Got News for You.

Ian Hislop

#4. The best comedy is where you attack the strong, not the weak.

Ian Hislop

#5. You can't understand Twenties England until you appreciate it was under a cloud of mourning. Nearly everyone was grieving.

Ian Hislop

#6. Internet journalism is not a world we know very well at all. It's conducted more on the screen and less in bars, which makes it rather less useful for getting stories about people throwing up over one another, which is what one's after.

Ian Hislop

#7. For a long time I thought I should be a civil engineer. That seemed to be the only thing worth doing, and I chose the wrong subjects at A-level. I read all the sciences to start with, and then had to admit, 'This isn't what I want to do' and changed course.

Ian Hislop

#8. This job certainly doesn't win you a huge amount of friends, I accept that, but it is very enjoyable, and deep down I think it's probably quite a worthwhile job.

Ian Hislop

#9. My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.

Ian Hislop

#10. Modest about our national pride - and inordinately proud of our national modesty.

Ian Hislop

#11. I've got a very peculiar sort of fame, based on being on the telly. It doesn't mean you have the lifestyle people expect.

Ian Hislop

#12. England Their England by AG Macdonell which was written in the thirties and is about a young Scotsman who's got shell shocked during the First World War... I love it.

Ian Hislop

#13. It is no longer acceptable in British politics to be fat or eccentric or religious.

Ian Hislop

#14. I've seen the Pokemon movie, which is probably the worst movie ever made on any subject ever.

Ian Hislop

#15. I get paid to do what I enjoy, not that common a condition.

Ian Hislop

#16. I'd always assumed that I would die at about the same age as my dad - he was 45. I am five years in credit now. I can't get my head around the fact that I am older than he was - ever.

Ian Hislop

#17. I do have a residual belief that, if at all possible, you should try not to mock the weak

Ian Hislop

#18. I'm often accused of being prudish, but the opposite is true.

Ian Hislop

#19. They may well say not only is this not true, but I will put in an injunction to prevent publication. No, stories don't go in unless I'm convinced by the people who write them that they're true. And if I'm wrong, then so be it.

Ian Hislop

#20. In Britian we have a free press. It's not a pretty press, but it's free. The people who can't bear the Daily Mail, they say: 'you should ban it'. No no, no no, you don't ban it ... you don't buy it.

Ian Hislop

#21. All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up.

Ian Hislop

#22. You have a huge amount of confidence when you're younger, which slowly ebbs away for the rest of your life. You think: 'No problem. I can do that. Why shouldn't I do it?'

Ian Hislop

#23. I like making films about old people because they are repositories of amazing stories that they tell well. And they're incredibly good telly.

Ian Hislop