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Jonathan Dimbleby Quotes

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Food is about communal togetherness. Our family does sit at the table. I think it's a great tragedy if a family doesn't have a table, as there is such an atmosphere of good will and warmth when we have eight people sitting around it.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

I Think, Atmosphere, About, Warmth

Until I was 21, I wasn't going into the media. I was a professional show jumper; I was going to have a farm... Then my father died, and it changed my life. I realised I had to have a go at being a journalist to see if I could cut the mustard.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Father, My Life, Cut, Mustard

I was a reluctant convert, and I am by no means a zealot. But the evidence is compelling: to write off wind-power is either ill-informed or dishonest.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Evidence, Means, Compelling, Convert

I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my 'Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win' chanting and marching days - by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde's feelings about 'the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.'

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Pursuit, About, Had, Marching

Rolling my trousers down to expose the upper part of my buttocks and having a knife pressed up and down my spine by a Russian white witch, as she murmured incantations, was certainly a new experience to cure my backache. It was surprisingly soothing.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Part, Soothing, Upper, Witch

Recently, I had a hip resurfaced. It's different from a hip replacement because it's done with titanium. I like to think that it's the consequence of riding horses so strenuously, but I fear it's much more mundane and was just early-onset arthritis.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Riding, Hip, Had, Arthritis

As it is, the grotesque distortions of the global market mean that for every dollar the West dispatches to Africa in the form of aid, two dollars are clawed back through subsidies and tariff barriers: a monumental rip-off by the rich as they instruct the poor to accept 'free' trade or else.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Through, Back, Rip-Off, Global Market

The long, forensic interview really matters.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Long, Matters, Forensic, Interview

I was disappointed not to be able to interview Mr. Clinton. I met him two years ago. I was looking forward to talking with him about issues from Africa to terrorism.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Forward, Africa, Mr, Interview

My two great treats in life are baked beans and vanilla ice-cream.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Beans, Treats, Baked, Ice-Cream

I am now certain that we have no alternative but to reduce urgently the levels of carbon that we are still pumping into the atmosphere as though tomorrow simply didn't matter. If we don't act collectively and individually, our children and their children will reap a whirlwind which will obliterate their civilisation.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Matter, Atmosphere, Our, Civilisation

I'm not certain that the BBC can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Making, BBC, Wide, Claim

My only real claim to fame is that I was southern England show-jumping champion in 1966. The day after my father died, 'Horse & Hound' magazine tipped me as a future Olympic champion, and I took it seriously. You can only really enjoy something if you take it seriously.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Father, Southern, Olympic, Claim

Ethiopia is engraved on my heart. I first went in 1973 because I heard of a terrible famine. They were denying it even as we got the film out. The coverage destroyed the emperor's credibility.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Film, Got, Coverage, Emperor

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Battle, Obsessed, TV, Ratings

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Test, Public, Weigh, Ratings

Over the last two years, I have been able to comb through The Prince's archives. I have been free to read his journals, diaries and many thousands of the letters.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Through, Over, Been, Letters

Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Words, Been, Using, Andrew

I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Access, Which, Based, Unprecedented

The BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Think, Big, Call, Uncertain

I cycle, I take an hour's strenuous walk in the evening, I play tennis twice a week with a trainer, and I sail. I used to ride horses professionally - I'd ride seven or eight horses a day, so I had to be fit for that.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Sail, Play, Week, Twice A Week

As a young man, causes of one kind or another engaged me, and I thought the media is where you express yourself in that. I lived with the illusion, for quite a long time, that if you described something accurately, something would be done about it.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Thought, Young, Engaged, Quite A Long Time

At home in Devon, my wife Jessica does a huge proportion of the cooking - I do the basics. My timing is extremely good, particularly when it comes to vegetables, perhaps because in my work, timing is everything. I know exactly what fits into a minute when broadcasting, and I apply the same to carrots.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Basics, Devon, Proportion, Jessica

I have a great deal of joy in my life, and I'm very fortunate. That combination makes you aware of just how wonderful life can be on the one hand and how dreadful it can be for people on the other. You can't be happy in isolation.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

My Life, Deal, Very, Wonderful Life

I was born with a silver microphone in my mouth, and that was an advantage. My father wrote books and was also a great broadcaster.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Born, Broadcaster, Advantage, Microphone

I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don't.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Fact, Principal, Rejoice, Ought

Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good - like rabbit.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Good, Some, Perfectly, Evening

While I have corrected agreed factual errors, I have not been inhibited from writing what I felt to be the truth about The Prince of Wales.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Been, About, Felt, Errors

I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Tax, Proportion, Programmes, Justify

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.

- Jonathan Dimbleby

Load, BBC, Programmes, Produces

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