Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Boris Johnson
210 quotes
“I lost the job, but the well the honest truth is that this has been embellished by, probably by me, in the sense that there were two of us who were taken on as trainees, and this was in the, the, the 80s, I think it was the late 80s, and it was him or me who was going to get the job at the end of, at the end of, eight months or nine months.... It was, it was absolutely, it was mano-a-mano and of course it was him who got it.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed on Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4 (30 October 2005)
“I was just chucking these rocks over the garden wall, and I'd listen to this amazing crash from the greenhouse, next door, over, over in England, as everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory Party, and, and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of, of power.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed on Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4 (30 October 2005)
“I can't remember what my line on drugs is. What's my line on drugs?”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Genelection Game", Sunday Mirror, 24 April 2005, p. 19.
“Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Francis Elliott, "Boris casts his vote: 'Spectator' editor tells 'Desert Island Discs' he'll quit to spend more time with David Cameron", The Independent on Sunday, 30 October 2005, p. 3.
“Old Man Howard, that Old Man Howard, he just keeps rolling, just keeps rolling.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Andrew Pierce, "Boris on a roll", The Times, 29 April 2005, p. 40.
“I'm very attracted to it. I may be diverting from Tory party policy here, but I don't care.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Andrew Pierce, The Times, 30 April 2005, p. 42.
“Life isn't like coursework, baby. It's one damn essay crisis after another.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Exams work because they're scary", The Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2005, p. 22.
“I'm a rugby player, really, and I knew I was going to get to him, and when he was about two yards away I just put my head down. There was no malice. I was going for the ball with my head, which I understand is a legitimate move in soccer.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ed Harris, "Boris bites Herr legs...: The MP for Henley does his bit for Anglo-German diplomacy", Evening Standard, 4 May 2006, p. 9.
“Not only did I want Bush to win, but we threw the entire weight of The Spectator behind him.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Have I Got Views for You (2006), p. 272
“For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a Daily Telegraph column "Blair has nothing more to say to us: he should go at once" (7 September 2006) p. 22, as cited in "Boris apology to Papua New Guinea" BBC News (8 September 2006)
“I meant no insult to the people of Papua New Guinea, who I'm sure lead lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity like the rest of us... I am happy to add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 9 September 2006
“I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On BBC Booktalk in 2006 quoted in
“The real hero of Jaws is the mayor. A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open. OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the mayor - we are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech delivered at Lloyd's of London in 2006, quoted in {{citation |date=18 July 2007 |title=Boris Johnson inspired by Jaws mayor
“The world's population is now 6.7 billion, roughly double what it was when I was born. If I live to be in my mid-eighties, then it will have trebled in my lifetime. The UN last year revised its forecasts upwards, predicting that there will be 9.2 billion people by 2050, and I simply cannot understand why no one discusses this impending calamity, and why no world statesmen have the guts to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]ver the years, the argument changed, and certain words became taboo, and certain concepts became forbidden, and we have reached the stage where the very discussion of overall human fertility — global motherhood — has become more or less banned.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the evidence shows that we can help reduce population growth, and world poverty, by promoting literacy and female emancipation and access to birth control. Isn't it time politicians stopped being so timid, and started talking about the real number one issue?”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Global over-population is the real issue" The Telegraph (25 October 2007)
“Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On attempting to find any reason to oppose Barack Obama] In the end I gave up, goggle-eyed and exhausted, having trolled the wilds of the Neocon internet without finding anything remotely approaching a smoking gun.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Barack Obama: Why I believe he should be the next President" The Telegraph (21 October 2008)
“Had it been us staging the Games, I don't think we would necessarily have done the switcheroo with the girl with the braces”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Boris Johnson In Beijing", The Guardian (21 August 2008)
“My policy on cake is still pro having it and pro eating it!”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Lynn Barber in "No more Mr Nice Guy" The Observer (19 October 2008)
“Thank you very much Mr Meyer, Anthony Meyer that is. I want to thank you, I want to thank the police of course, and my wife Marina and my family, and my utterly brilliant campaign team, the Conservative GLA candidates — some of whom were extremely unlucky tonight — and of course the thousands of Conservative activists, the ward captains and knocker-uppers who did such an amazing job today, and indeed yesterday, rather.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This has been a marathon election as you can tell with a record turnout and I think it has been good for politics and it has been good for London.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to thank Sian [Berry, Green Party] and Lindsey [German, Left List] and Alan [Craig, Christian Peoples Party] and Gerard [Batten, UKIP], who have sometimes joined us for hustings, but mainly I want to thank my two colleagues in the strange triumvirate who have been trundling around London's church halls and TV studios violently disputing the meaning of multiculturalism and the exact cost of conductors. On which point I think I'm going to declare victory.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I want to congratulate you Brian [Paddick] on your great common sense and decency with which you put your case and I do hope that it is not the end of our discussions about the police.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And as for Ken, Mayor Livingstone, I think you have been a very considerable public servant and a distinguished leader of this city.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You shaped the office of mayor. You gave it national prominence and when London was attacked on 7 July 2005 you spoke for London.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I can tell you that your courage and the sheer exuberant nerve with which you stuck it to your enemies, especially in New Labour, you have thereby earned the thanks and admiration of millions of Londoners, even if you think that they have a funny way of showing it today.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And when we have that drink together which we both so richly deserve, I hope we can discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London, a city whose energy conquered the world and which now brings the world together in one city.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not for one minute believe that this election shows that London has been transformed overnight into a Conservative city but I do hope it does show that the Conservatives have changed into a party that can again be trusted after 30 years with the greatest, most cosmopolitan, multi-racial generous hearted city on earth in which there are huge and growing divisions between rich and poor.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And that brings me to my final thank you which is of course to the people of London.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would like to thank first the vast multitudes who voted against me - and I have met quite a few in the last nine months, not all of them entirely polite.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I will work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And as for those who voted for me, I know there will be many whose pencils hovered for an instant before putting an X in my box and I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have a new team ready to go in to City Hall. Where there have been mistakes we will rectify them. Where there are achievements we will build on them.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I hope that everybody who loves this city will put aside party differences to try in the making of Greater London greater still. Let's get cracking tomorrow and let's have a drink tonight.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can't turn the clock back to 1904, what's the point of being a Conservative?”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Boris Johnson on South Bank for Barclays Cycle Hire launch, London SE1, 30 July 2010
“The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: BBC News Interview with Jeremy Paxman, BBC News, 7 May 2010
“The excitement is growing so much I think the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania is going to go zoink off the scale.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the forthcoming London Olympic Games. The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2012.
“They are like glistening wet otters frolicking.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Telegraph column, 31 July 2012
“It is often useful to give the slight impression that you are deliberately pretending not to know what is going on, because the reality may be that you don't know what is going on, but people won't be able to tell the difference.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise (25 March 2013)
“If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Telegraph article (12 May 2013)
“Now can I ask you a question, "Why is it that we're lucky to have so many Chinese students?" Is it because of the weather? Is it because we have so many French restaurants? Is it because we have so many communist bicycles? [At Beijing's 798 art district, 13 October 2013]”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[A demonstration of "cultural interpenetration" between the UK and China] Who, according to JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels, was Harry Potter's first girlfriend? Who is the first person he kisses? That's right, Cho Chang, who is a Chinese overseas student at Hogwarts school. [...] Ladies and gents I rest my case. [From a speech at Peking university, 14 October 2013]”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On deputy prime minister Nick Clegg] He's there to serve a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron's lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device for all the difficult things that David Cameron has to do that cheese off the rest of the ... [ending absent] He’s a kind of shield. He’s a lapdog who’s been skinned and turned into a shield to protect.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed on LBC, as cited in "Nick Clegg is David Cameron's condom, Boris Johnson says" The Telegraph (7 January 2014)
“Putin's proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria", The Telegraph (5 December 2015)
“Think of Britain. Think of the rest of the EU. Think of the future. Think of the desire of your children and your grandchildren to live and work in other European countries; to sell things there, to make friends and perhaps to find partners there.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And then there is the whole geostrategic anxiety. Britain is a great nation, a global force for good. It is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms: the membership fee seems rather small for all that access.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a draft of a pro-EU newspaper column for The Daily Telegraph (written 19 February 2016), later reproduced in All Out War by Tim Shipman. Draft article published as "Cripes! I jolly nearly backed Dave on Europe" The…
“There is only one way to get the change we need - and that is to vote to go; because all EU history shows that they only really listen to a population when it says no.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: EU referendum: Leaving EU a 'leap in the dark' says Cameron BBC News (22 February 2016)
“They want us to go to the polls in such a state of quivering apprehension that we do the bidding of the Euro-elites, and vote to stay in the European Union.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: EU referendum: Row over '10 years of uncertainty' claim BBC News (29 February 2016)