Kind 'Guardian' readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage.
Simon Hoggart
Related Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill JUDE WATSON 'Endless Love' is such a perfect love song for a wedding or for a Valentine, because that is... DELILAH Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let... E. L. KONIGSBURG It SMELLS ancient," - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON Palm trees were fanned by a warm, light breeze, and they rolled down their windows to smell the sea. JUDE WATSON I love the atmosphere at the mall - everything about Christmas. I don't think anything specific ... DRAKE BELL It was memorable the first time 'The New Yorker' bought a cartoon from me. I had been sendin... BRUCE ERIC KAPLAN My first generation of young readers now have not only children, but some of them have grandchildren... DIANE DUANE Let's head out to the ruins." - Dan Cahill ROLAND SMITH I'm suprised he doesn't send Christmas cards," Antonio said. "I can see them now. Tasteful, embossed... KELLEY ARMSTRONG I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mi... NEKO CASE Christmas and the holidays are the season of giving. It's a time when people are more kind and o... GISELE BUNDCHEN The history of the past, a hundred years from now, won't be the history of the past that we lear... WILLIAM GIBSON Being homeschooled for half of my life allowed me to choose my own curriculum and find things I real... YARA SHAHIDI I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES I have pets, but they're the really ordinary sort - yellow Labrador, tabby cat, white rabbit, a ... GRAEME BASE It was a good game. The Chinese played a lot better than they did in round robin. They have improved... CHARLEY THOMAS I didn't feel the need to rebel as a teenager. From age nine to 16, I went to school in Montreux... ANGELA BOWIE All these issues have been covered in a lot of detail. We're just bringing them back to the public f... JULIE REGAN The big things in the average person's life are the romances that they have - and then the destr... LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III A lot of people resent that I've been in someone's life for 50 years. Why shouldn't peop... JERRY LEWIS Working on 'Nightmare Before Christmas,' I had endless arguments, like the studio saying, ... TIM BURTON It's like your children talking about holidays, you find they have a quite different memory of i... DENIS NORDEN In the NBA, as in nowhere else in America, white people are utterly beholden to black people, and th... DAVID SHIELDS I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they ov... BARACK OBAMA I had to marry a Greek; I had to stir up the ethnic pot. Otherwise, my children would have been anem... ALEXANDRA WENTWORTH Readers have told me that their children have learned to read after years of struggle after starting... JIM DAVIS 'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just s... HARRY CONNICK, JR. I wanted to make my stories, which are inspired by Asian stories, into something fresh, decontextual... KEN LIU my life is a performance for which i was never given any chance to
rehearse. If i had then I may not... FEMALE IMAGINATION I mainly cook British food with a few things I've had on my holidays. I went to the Canary Islan... MARY BERRY All of us have a 'voice' inside where all inspired thoughts come from. When I talk to childr... PATRICIA POLACCO I put the copy of 'A Christmas Carol' that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago ... WHITLEY STRIEBER To have the time to reminisce is one of the futures gifts. Don't think to much, don't live to fast, ... CALVIN WILSON We are the masters of our own destinies we shape and mould our lives into to the circumstances surro... GARY F EVANS... I've been saying for years that readers want inexpensive ebooks. J. A. KONRATH Christmas means a great deal to me. I was reared in a family that celebrated Christmas to some exten... BILLY GRAHAM The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. ... TADAO ANDO It's been a great honor for me to be a player for the Detroit Red Wings, to play for an Original... STEVE YZERMAN I really love pets. They're like children. They know if you really love them or not. You can'... DONNA DOUGLAS Everyone wants to capture that full-price selling that you get from gift cards after Christmas. This... ERIC BEDER Now, and in the future, my focus is entirely on pets and children. I'm not a person who can turn... LORI FOSTER I was lucky that one of my first movies, 'One Million Years B.C.' was made in Europe by a Br... RAQUEL WELCH I've been performing since I was very little, about three years old. I was inspired at first by ... ERICH BERGEN In America, there's a programme called 'The Swan.' They take 12 ugly people and call the... TRINNY WOODALL Readers want to have the confidence that you understand the era in which the book is set, so for ... FIONA MCINTOSH But Serena Williams is right, albeit not as funny as she might have been: his statement is not factu... THE GUARDIAN The biggest lesson I've learned from my children is to look in the mirror at myself, not at them... JAMIE LEE CURTIS I had never considered using a hashtag anywhere other than on Twitter, but now I'm inspired. Tex... SUSAN ORLEAN The holidays are a rough time for the homeless, but it's a year-round problem we have to solve. MIKE BINDER The events between 1968 and 1980 were the kind of cornerstone for everything I've been able to d... ROBERT PLANT I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many read... MAGGIE STIEFVATER I was one of those children they used to call 'readers.' CATHLEEN SCHINE My parents were kind of over protective people. Me and my sister had to play in the backyard all the... JIMMY FALLON Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind, Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell m... SHEL SILVERSTEIN I've been very hands-on with everything I've done since I had my children. And it's just... BRITNEY SPEARS Working with children has done well for me. I don't find them intolerable or frustrating. They... BECK BENNETT I like to be loved by my children, and I quite like the 'Guardian' hating me. I like it when... JEREMY CLARKSON Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us towar... JAMES WOOD When I was a little girl, if I didn't eat my soup, my mother would say, 'You have to think o... DIANE VON FURSTENBERG I've always been scared of advertising folk. I've met them at parties and I've been to t... EVAN DAVIS I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people ... MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX Robin McKinley's 'The Blue Sword' was a defining book of my teen years, and I'd love... CARRIE VAUGHN I know a lot of actors picture themselves winning Academy Awards. I really just wanted to do a Chris... LEIGH-ALLYN BAKER I love 'Call the Midwife'; it's an absolute gem of a programme. Filming the Christmas sp... HELEN GEORGE Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to ... WILLA CATHER Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to ... WILLA SIBERT CATHER In the best possible scenario, whenever you get notes from people, they're good notes, and they ... BEAU WILLIMON Background scores allow me an absolute flight of the imagination, and I travel in my mind's eye.... NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI I've had lengthy discussions with European farm leaders. It is clear they have an agricultural s... KENT CONRAD A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten yea... ARTHUR KOESTLER I'm constantly being inspired by the old days and taking things from the past and allowing them ... VALERIE JUNE I had a trainer during 'Spiderman,' and I discovered I have deep-seated rage when I'm ho... EMMA STONE Kidney donors don't have to be close relatives of recipients, but they do need to have the right... VIRGINIA POSTREL Now I'm an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the ... ORSON WELLES I write in expectation that readers want to participate in a kind of two-sided game: They are trying... JOHN CROWLEY For children, childhood is timeless. It is always the present. Everything is in the present tense. O... IAN MCEWAN For 20 years, Simon & Schuster asked me, 'Why don't you write your autobiography?' ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER 'Downward Spiral' felt like I had an unending bottomless pit of rage and self-loathing insid... TRENT REZNOR Counterterrorism analysts have known for years that al Qaeda prepares for attacks with elaborate ... BARTON GELLMAN Historically, Vietnam movies have been profitable. All of them. 'Platoon,' 'Full Metal J... DAWN STEEL Five or six songs leaked from the original version of 'Encore.' So I had to go in and make n... EMINEM I kind of feel like I've been eating professionally for a long time. I've tasted everything.... DUFF GOLDMAN Another woman approached me while I was having lunch at the Russian Tea Room in New York and told me... SIDNEY SHELDON For more than 40 years, I have advocated the creation of a 'round the clock' community. This... DAVID ROCKEFELLER It's been so long since I've been around something from somebody else that's inspired me. For the la... ERIC CLAPTON Some of the tributes that have affected me the most have come from my 'fans' - friends - men... RUDOLPH VALENTINO When my children were born, I didn't have them baptized because I felt baptism was about erasing... OLYMPIA DUKAKIS Robots are great. I am saying that now so that when a future civilization of robots takes us captive... MATT HAIG I understand that I'm not perfect. I made mistakes and I had a hand in everything that's hap... DWYANE WADE For the last 30 years our cinemas have been ruled by science fiction and horror. We've had some ... HARRY KNOWLES An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them. STEPHEN FRY To be fair to the Inquisition, they only used confessions extracted after the torture had ended, whi... SIMON HOGGART In 1962, I wrote a series about 42nd Street called 'Welcome to Lostville.' One result was th... PETE HAMILL I think we've taken the meaning of Christmas out. People don't stop and think about Jesus or... BILLY GRAHAM It's my fault for not having revealed it earlier, but I hadn't given it much importance. I didn't wa... JAVI NAVARRO The absolute dependence of a newborn infant inspired many things in me, but it did not activate any ... MARY KAY BLAKELY I often visit Maria Tatar's 'The Grimm Reader' for a cold dose of courage. Her translati... KATE BERNHEIMER I felt that for 20 years, I was wooing the people of my country and asking them to like me as an act... AMITABH BACHCHAN
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SAM SIMON I'm supporting the charities that I supported during my lifetime, and I want to continue to do t... SAM SIMON 'The Simpsons' money got bigger and bigger. When I left 'The Simpsons', no one thoug... SAM SIMON I want medical experiments on animals stopped. They don't do anything, and they don't work. SAM SIMON One of the things about animal rights, which is not the only thing that I care about in this world, ... SAM SIMON The truth is, I have more money than I'm interested in spending. Everyone in my family is taken ... SAM SIMON Work made me crazy. I was tough to get along with. SAM SIMON I don't believe in miracles. SAM SIMON I am a big PETA supporter, and their East Coast headquarters is the Sam Simon building, and their We... SAM SIMON A lot of charities spend a million dollars on a fundraiser to make $15,000. It's a social swirl.... SAM SIMON I want to do whatever I can to survive. SAM SIMON I don't think the spirit of Hollywood is such a spirit of generosity. 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ALAN SIMON We're taking in less [household] trash and have more capacity. And capacity equals money. ALAN SIMON It's pretty much a lull in the action. We're looking forward to the next few years. ALAN SIMON Corporate America cannot afford to remain silent or passive about the downward spiral we are undergo... SIMON MAINWARING If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then t... SIMON RATTLE As a child growing up in a grey-skied Yorkshire village, I would occasionally happen upon a Bollywoo... SIMON BEAUFOY Whether they run a record company or a grocery store, every boss will tell you you're in big tro... SIMON COWELL Don't borrow someone else's spectacles to view yourself with. SIMON TRAVAGLIA I work out three or four times a week, I have Botox, take tons of vitamins and vitamin infusions - i... SIMON COWELL I've had Botox, but then again pretty much everyone I know has. To me, Botox is no more unusual ... SIMON COWELL I get paid very well and am happy with what I make, but I'm not in the super-rich bracket. I sho... SIMON BIRD To operate based on conviction and belief requires an acceptance that your actions could get you fir... SIMON SINEK The most potentially transformative impact of social media is its ability to encourage brands to mar... SIMON MAINWARING Non-disclosure in the Internet Age is quickly perceived as a breach of trust. Government, corporatio... SIMON MAINWARING The golden age is before us, not behind us. ST. SIMON Sudden money is going from zero to two hundred dollars a week. The rest doesn't count. NEIL SIMON Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow. SIMON DACH In this age of omniconnectedness, words like 'network,' 'community' and even 'fr... SIMON SINEK There should be a readiness, on our part, to investigate with candor to follow the truth wherever it... SIMON GREENLEAF In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind in those who would investigate the truth of our reli... SIMON GREENLEAF People like us, we think differently, don't we? We are different. We do all the things that others d... SIMON MORDEN Oga. Watu hawaogi ndiyo maana wachafu. Kuoga ni lazima kutumia maji. Ukitaka kuoga neno, tumia maji;... SIMON MASHALLA If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire pe... SIMON SINEK There are in me the seeds from which, if necessary, the universe could be constructed. In me somewhe... TED SIMON New York is not Mecca. It just smells like it. NEIL SIMON To be worth making at all a journey has to be made in the mind as much as in the world of objects an... TED SIMON Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant. JOHN SIMON All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. PAUL SIMON Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct ... SIMON SCHAMA Some years ago, writing about stage adaptations of fiction, I noted: JOHN SIMON What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a w... HERBERT SIMON For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews... SIMON WIESENTHAL Don't listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sist... NEIL SIMON It is a comfort to the unfortunate to have companions in woe.
[Lat., Solamen miseris socios habuis... SIMON FORMAN Better your room than your company. SIMON FORMAN Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams. ELLEN SIMON Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while... SIMON FOWLER All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. PAUL SIMON An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. SIMON CAMERON Integrate purpose into your for-profit business model through a long term commitment to a cause that... SIMON MAINWARING Transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn't happen overnight by simply writi... SIMON MAINWARING Albert Camus, a great humanist and existentialist voice, pointed out that to commit to a just cause ... DAVID SIMON The why is what makes journalism an adult game. The why is what makes policy coherent and useful. Th... DAVID SIMON There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on th... DAVID SIMON What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a we... HERBERT SIMON If you have the opportunity to do amazing things in your life, I strongly encourage you to invite so... SIMON SINEK For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it's doom and gloom ... SIMON COWELL The whole process of being one of the 10 finalists for the 'Vogue' Fashion Fund award has to... SIMON SPURR It's interesting in American culture. We like to build people up and then push them off the pede... SIMON REX American audiences tend to be more expressive than British ones. SIMON PEGG There are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't ev... SIMON PEGG Pilots have their names painted just beneath the canopy of their aircraft. This gives the pilot a se... SIMON SINEK One of the greatest challenges companies face in adjusting to the impact of social media, is knowing... SIMON MAINWARING I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had pu... SIMON SCHAMA As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another p... SIMON NEWCOMB Actions speak louder than words. All companies say they care, right? But few actually exercise that ... SIMON SINEK You're lucky you had that when you were 20. I sure didn't. I was overweight, and I had acne. CARLY SIMON Perhaps the most powerful lesson other brands can learn from Nike is the need to act in accordance w... SIMON MAINWARING The challenge of the unknown future is so much more exciting than the stories of the accomplished pa... SIMON SINEK Playing piano well is one thing, but attempting to play at concert level accompanying Meryl Streep w... SIMON HELBERG Astronomers are greatly disappointed when, having traveled halfway around the world to see an eclips... SIMON NEWCOMB A really strong woman accepts the war she went through and is ennobled by her scars. CARLY SIMON A social contract is the way out of this dilemma for corporations that want to lead in the 21st cent... SIMON MAINWARING However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacqu... SIMON MAINWARING Social media demands a lot of us on top of our already demanding lives. So let's disconnect as w... SIMON MAINWARING Ensure your employees understand what your brand stands for so they can be your first line of word-o... SIMON MAINWARING Not since the digital revolution in the early '90s has technology placed such a comprehensive bu... SIMON MAINWARING For a truly effective social campaign, a brand needs to embrace the first principles of marketing, w... SIMON MAINWARING More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing... SIMON MAINWARING We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that super... SIMON MAINWARING Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will... SIMON MAINWARING Brands are faced with the daily challenge of massively scaling their outreach in order to build pers... SIMON MAINWARING Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation and consen... SIMON MAINWARING Companies and their brands need to reach out and speak directly to consumers, to honor their values,... SIMON MAINWARING More and more companies are reaching out to their suppliers and contractors to work jointly on issue... SIMON MAINWARING Define what your brand stands for, its core values and tone of voice, and then communicate consisten... SIMON MAINWARING Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for... HERBERT SIMON Like springs, adaptations can only go downhill. JOHN SIMON The evolution of social media into a robust mechanism for social transformation is already visible. ... SIMON MAINWARING There's an adage that is an apt description of the new dynamic at work between brands and consum... SIMON MAINWARING The role of social media is critical because it helps to spread cognitive dissonance by connecting t... SIMON MAINWARING As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put t... PAUL SIMON There's something about the sound of a train that's very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful. PAUL SIMON I'm not in it for the money. I like music. I love to write music. I can't imagine myself not... PAUL SIMON I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmo... PAUL SIMON I think I have a superior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it. PAUL SIMON The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains. PAUL SIMON I'm more interested in what I discover than what I invent. PAUL SIMON My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the ... PAUL SIMON Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? PAUL SIMON You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen. PAUL SIMON Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone. PAUL SIMON My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. ... PAUL SIMON We've survived by believing our life is going to get better. PAUL SIMON I would be willing to do almost anything to make Art happy. I care about our friendship. The only th... PAUL SIMON Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo. PAUL SIMON I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don't get sentime... PAUL SIMON Who am I to blow against the wind? PAUL SIMON I don't consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I'm g... PAUL SIMON If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, an... PAUL SIMON Anybody can do bad work, but not everybody does good work. PAUL SIMON Improvisation is too good to leave to chance. PAUL SIMON Listen to the sound of silence. PAUL SIMON The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the s... PAUL SIMON I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It&... PAUL SIMON Nike doesn't want to make products for everyone - they want to make products for champions. SIMON SINEK Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which men will never have to cope. SIMON NEWCOMB A country's economic growth may be defined as a long-term rise in capacity to supply increasingl... SIMON KUZNETS My father was the most rational and the most dispassionate of men. SIMON NEWCOMB If your lifeguard duties were as good as your singing, a lot of people would be drowning. SIMON COWELL My attitude is, if someone's going to criticize me, tell me to my face. SIMON COWELL When someone asks, 'Does success make you into a monster?' I always say, 'No, it enables... SIMON COWELL I was bought an electric guitar when I was 12, but my guitar teacher beat me up. I didn't like g... SIMON COWELL My own saying is: 'Create the hype, but don't ever believe it.' SIMON COWELL I think you have to judge everything based on your personal taste. And if that means being critical,... SIMON COWELL The secret of my success is that I make other people money. And, never ever, ever, ever be ashamed a... SIMON COWELL I still put punctuation in my texts. If it's an 'I', I make sure it's a capital. SIMON COWELL I could just sit back and get someone to spin my achievements, I suppose, but when I see others do i... SIMON COWELL You are a saucy little thing aren't you? SIMON COWELL