Clement Freud

"If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer."

"I suppose that if your name is Freud, it is better to be related to Sigmund than not. It must be frustrating to have to keep denying family connection."

"I was called up in 1942. Having been born in Berlin, schooled in Devon, London and Berkshire, and lived in Suffolk, I ended up in the Highland Light Infantry."

"In 1978 I was on a parliamentary delegation to Japan and returned via China during the Cultural Revolution, a choice also made by young Winston Churchill, then the Conservative MP for Stretford. I was debriefed by the Minister for Information who asked if there was anything at all I would like to ask. I said: "Yes. Everything you do, you do with extreme care and precision. When I ask questions that your government does not like, my driver calls for me five minutes later than arranged. When I ask if there are any blind or handicapped children in China, I get cabbage soup for dinner."Now I am in your country with a colleague, than whom I am older, have been in parliament longer, have held higher positions in our respective political parties: we are both staying at the Peking Palace Hotel and his suite is bigger than mine. Why?"The Minister, very embarrassed, finally said: "It is because Mr Churchill had a famous grandfather."It is the only time that I have been out-grandfathered."

"He did not suffer fools gladly (or at all) and his threshold for foolishness was set rather low. He was the master of the terrifying put-down: with his fine palate he loathed cigarette smoke and once on the train, an acquaintance told me with awe, a woman lit up in the non-smoking carriage near him. When he remonstrated she said: "Oh, it's only ten feet from the smoking section." Freud sprang to his feet and said: "Madam, we're only five feet from the lavatory, is it all right if I piss on the floor?""