A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Gift giving is one of the oldest forms of human interaction. It is a behaviour all cultures and all classes share.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Shorts are silly. Men in shorts are silly men. And silly is the very worst thing a man can be.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

You can propose marriage naked or in handcuffs, but no one is going to agree to forsake all others for a man in shorts. You can't declare war in shorts or deliver a eulogy in shorts.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Suits are malevolent magicians' sleeves for socialists, full of patrician loops and tricks, small, embroidered, cryptic messages of deference and privilege. They are ever the uniform of the enemy. They are also the greatest British invention ever.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Only people who live outside cities realize the size of them. London turns out to be huge; there are great swaths, vast panoramas, a whole diaspora I'd never imagined. The place I live in tends to be manageably small, a few familiar journeys and destinations.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

This is the trouble with cheating: there are no acceptable rules, or laws. It could be a smile, or dancing to a song that you considered to be indefinably 'ours'. It can feel like cheating to go to a restaurant that you used to go to with someone else. Keeping photographs of exes can infuriate, like retrospective cheating.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

The French are never happy coming to London; this is an ancient and comforting enmity.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

It is impossible to be taken seriously in shorts. No one has ever cared about anything said by a man in shorts.

A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill

Cowboy boots you can't wear unless you actually are a cowboy or in a Status Quo tribute band, or over 60; there's something about a retiring gent in cowboy boots that looks sort of presidential.