Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.

If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us.

Nobody ever forgets their first night in the bush. It's among the precious, meagre handful of life firsts that remain indelible.

The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.

Is it a particularly British trait to so utterly adore truly appalling men, from Tony Hancock through to Steptoe and Alf Garnett, Captain Mainwaring, Rigsby, Del Boy, Victor Meldrew and on to David Brent from The Office. The most deeply adored characters are all simply vile.

Sport is how poor kids from poor countries pass through the eye of the needle to riches and recognition.

He (Jeremy Clarkson) is the last man standing on the beach commanding the glaciers' melt waters to go back