Top 93 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Neil

I'm proud to have played a major part in destroying Fleet Street, a corrupt cartel of unions and proprietors that operated against the public interest.

In the highly unlikely event that the 'Telegraph' was to be sold again, then 'The Spectator' doesn't go with it.

The English, in their ignorance, still have the romantic notion that Scottish schools are superior to English ones; they are at least a generation out of date.

If I had a pound for every former editor who hadn't cut the mustard advising me what to do, I'd be a very rich man.

The Spectator' has to be managed and people have to report. We all have bosses in this world and that's true of 'The Spectator' too.

Well, one person whose company I enjoy is Charlie Whelan. He and I get on really well together.

Ever since I left the 'Sunday Times' there has been a group of scribes waiting for me to fall on my face, and having a go at my commercial record, looking to pick holes in it.

Newspapers are what matter in this country, not magazines.

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

The old Establishment has always preserved its position by not being too exclusive - it has been wily enough to absorb the up-and-coming and convert them to their attitudes and mannerisms.

I am not an insider - definitely not... but I don't think you could call me an outsider.

Whereas people increasingly get their news from the Internet, magazines have a different atmospheric to them. A magazine is something you sit down and relax with.

There are two ways you can buy an education in this country. You can pay the fees. Or you can cheat and buy a house in an area where there's a good school.

People know more about my views than they do about most BBC presenters because I had a life before becoming a BBC presenter.

If the traditional British elite had made a great success of running my country, as successful, say, as the elites of Germany, Japan and America, then maybe it would be a club worth joining.

I don't even read 'the Sun' and it's my job to read everything that's politically important. I think that's a symbol of the declining power of the mainstream media.

You have to live and breathe Scotland if you're 'Scotsman' editor.

The Scotsman' is a cheerleader for devolution.

The Sun' and the 'News of the World' fell in line behind New Labour in the run up to the 1997 election, 'The Times' stayed broadly neutral and 'The Sunday Times' unenthusiastically Tory. After the election, 'The Times' quickly fell in line as the New Labour house journal.

I don't fall in love easily... But I do fall in love.

Well, we all make mistakes, and I've made some; getting involved in a price-cutting campaign in Scotland when the biggest slump in advertising history was just around the corner was a mistake.

WMR is wholly devoted to acquiring and exploiting rights. We're not a production company, and we're not a broadcaster.

When one English person speaks, another one immediately classifies him. No class system in the world is so audible, which is also why it is so pernicious and enduring.

The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity of a lifetime to working-class kids. It put them on a level playing field with the privately educated kids, and opened up the top universities to them.

Since the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is no longer respectable. It was in the 1920s and '30s, but the Holocaust obviously changed that.

No-one in their right mind would buy the 'New Statesman' and change it from being a left-wing to a right-wing magazine.

Journalists always want publishers or editors to leave. They're creative troublemakers - that's why you hire them.

My favourite sport's cricket and one of the key things in cricket is to know when to declare.

When you have variety, you have freedom.

You know, Rupert Murdoch I've said is like an Italian when it comes to negotiations.

I read more bloggers now than mainstream columnists, because they've got more interesting things to say.

Sometimes, I think 'The Spectator' is calculated to embarrass me.

Look, I don't want to edit the 'Scotsman.' I have too many other things going on. I have four newspapers to run and two dot com companies going gangbusters.

I always wanted to have a career in print and as a broadcaster.

I am a better journalist than I am a businessman.

Don't forget that Rupert Murdoch has always regarded the Op Ed pages of 'The Wall Street Journal' - as he's said to me - as a cup of strong caffeine that gets you going in the morning and tells you what to think.

No, you see, unlike some interviewers, I love politics... overall I am not anti-politicians at all. I recognise they are more important than me.

There's a substantial difference between dumping 100 copies of the 'Telegraph' at a Connex South Central station and giving away copies of the 'Business' with the 'Mail on Sunday.' 'This kind of circulation is valuable and enhances the brand. Leaving them anywhere willy-nilly devalues the brand.

Many U.S. Sunday papers are monopolies, and their contents can be an extension of the daily.

It is actually getting much harder for someone from an ordinary background to break through the ranks. In the period from 1964 to 1997, every single Prime Minister - from Harold Wilson to John Major - was the product of a state school.

That's the only time when newspapers have some influence, when they are pushing the British public in a direction they are already minded to go.

I would not rule out Rupert Murdoch once again having control of 'Sky News.'

Rupert Murdoch has been around since the dinosaurs. He knows how to get around any independent board - as he did with me, and as he's done with other editors as well.

When I went up to Glasgow University in 1967, student life was dominated by 13-hour debates on Fridays, when one of the student political clubs would form the 'government' for the day and attempt to push through a piece of legislation, which the other clubs either supported or opposed.

I recently passed through Mumbai airport. I cannot claim it was a pleasant experience. But if I had a choice between Mumbai airport and Euston on a Sunday afternoon, I'd take Mumbai any day.

With growing economic prowess comes, of course, military power.

The only exception to the demise/struggles of the European centre-left is Macron, in French presidential and parliamentary elections 2017.

I spend a lot of time in New York.

The Sunday paper is an odd British cultural tradition.

The Business' has been an editorial success, with a core audience that loves it. But commercially it has never been a success as a newspaper. It just gets crowded out on a Sunday.

If 'Spectator Business' works, we will continue this brand extension strategy and look at everything from 'Spectator Arts' to 'Spectator Style and Travel' or 'Spectator Connoisseur.'

I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

I made it clear when the Barclays took over the 'Telegraph' that I wanted no editorial position there. There is no way I could take a high-level editorial position at the papers. I have my work for the BBC, and that would be compromised if I did.

My mentor is Alastair Burnet, the greatest news anchor Britain has had.

You don't really appreciate how much you are going to miss your parents. I keep thinking of all the times I should have made the effort to go up and see them but didn't.

If a journalist comes to you with a great story, one of the first questions you ask is how did you get it. How you got it is relevant to judging its accuracy and preparing yourself for any legal challenge.

I'm a bit of a loner.

I never set out to get married and the way things have worked out I never have.

Every house has to have rules - even 'Animal House.'

Americans have this patrician attitude that they have a God-given right to produce these boring newspapers and not be challenged to do it. 'The New York Times' really thinks it's the BBC.