Gavin Esler Quotes

Gavin Esler is a highly respected British journalist, author and television presenter. He is best known for his work as a newsreader and reporter on BBC Newsnight. Gavin has also presented a number of documentaries and programs on politics, history and current affairs. He is known for his insightful observations and clever wit, which are on full display in his quotes. Here are some of the best quotes from Gavin Esler to inspire and motivate you.

  • The U.S. Constitution has absorbed the end of slavery, the Civil War, Civil Rights and Watergate.

    Gavin Esler

  • Americans, apparently, either do nothing about the world’s problems, in which case they are ignorant and isolationist, selfish and gutless, or they try to do something about the world’s problems, in which case they are arrogant and naive, greedy and bullying.

    Gavin Esler

  • Nigel Farage has got some strengths. He really connects with people. He is a very good talker. I find him very affable. I would very happily buy him a beer. And I am sure he would be happy with it to.

    Gavin Esler

  • I remember politicians in Northern Ireland were sometimes called ‘verbal incendiarists,’ as they didn’t actually do anything but they said certain things. So when you hear certain politicians using nasty language, that colours our lives. It makes some other people think it’s OK to racially abuse people.

    Gavin Esler

  • A celebrity can gain attention in our otherwise busy lives. And celebrity sells.

    Gavin Esler

  • Once upon a time, America was a self-reliant John Wayne society where a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Now, America has become an over-lawyered society where nobody takes responsibility for mistakes because it is more profitable to claim victimhood and reach for a lawyer.

    Gavin Esler

  • From the moment he took the oath of office in 1993 until he left the White House in 2001, Bill Clinton was a paradox in power. He presided over the United States prosperous and at peace – but never at peace with itself.

    Gavin Esler

  • Personally, I hope that we British continue to criticise America – just as I hope Americans will criticise us. That is what friends do.

    Gavin Esler

  • When I visit universities in the U.A.E., the U.S. and across Europe, I see the faces of the leaders of tomorrow.

    Gavin Esler

  • Every year I go to Denver, usually between June and August. I hire a car and head up to the Rocky Mountain National Park, about a three-hour drive. It’s my idea of heaven on earth and just talking about it puts me in a good mood.

    Gavin Esler

  • Maybe because I’ve worked in the BBC for so long I am completely allergic to meetings.

    Gavin Esler

  • I am the typical British aspiring working class. To be called ‘elite’ by people who have inherited wealth and run hedge funds or worked in the City of London, I don’t criticise them for it, but the idea is frankly laughable. Just ridiculous.

    Gavin Esler

  • Let me say it up front: I don’t like bad hair or capes. I’m not into witches, warlocks or elves. I would never try to claim prog rock is cool. But I love it. And I know I’m not the only one.

    Gavin Esler

  • There are people who appear on television who are paid for by shadowy think tanks whose financing they won’t come clean about.

    Gavin Esler

  • I can be incredibly stubborn and I’m not sure how that reflects in my looks. The family name is German and translates as donkey! If I think I’m right, I hope I don’t seem grumpy.

    Gavin Esler

  • In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, celebrity endorsements possibly damaged Hillary Clinton, since they allowed Donald Trump to emphasise that she was part of an out-of-touch elite. That is ironic, given that Mr Trump owed his election victory to his own celebrity status on a TV reality show.

    Gavin Esler

  • There’s no doubt that prog rock has an image problem: many musicians hate the label, and too many people associate it with 10-minute drum solos and the weirder bits of JRR Tolkien.

    Gavin Esler

  • I mostly like politicians. Very few of them are evil, although quite a lot are delusional.

    Gavin Esler

  • The thing I love most about going to the Rocky Mountain National Park is that mobile phones don’t work, and there’s no electricity and no TV.

    Gavin Esler

  • Public displays of puritanical religiosity mask the private perversions of the real Washington behind closed doors.

    Gavin Esler

  • When I do look at myself, I see someone who is fundamentally optimistic. Quite a lot of what I do in my television work involves the less than pleasant aspects of human nature, yet I’m never pessimistic.

    Gavin Esler

  • My taste in coffee has got better with age, and so has my taste in music.

    Gavin Esler

  • Presidents at the end of their second term – Reagan with the Iran-contra affair, Clinton with Monica Lewinsky – often find they are bedevilled by hostile Congressional investigations.

    Gavin Esler

  • Ronald Reagan offered us an international vision divided between the free world and the evil empire. Even if this was a cartoonish view, it helped us make sense of everything from Star Wars to industrial policy.

    Gavin Esler

  • I have a long connection with Kent and Canterbury and I hope to help other young men and women to achieve their ambitions through a wonderful university experience.

    Gavin Esler

  • Anyone who goes through divorce goes through a very hard time.

    Gavin Esler

  • My idea of heaven is being in Arizona, stuck up a mountain – somewhere where there are no phones.

    Gavin Esler

  • American elections have usually turned on the issues of war, peace and the economy.

    Gavin Esler

  • Maybe I should declare a bias. I like Americans. Always have. Always will.

    Gavin Esler

  • If we have to put music into baskets, then the progressive rock bands I fell in love with as a teenager made sounds that shaded into jazz, folk, metal, and in the case of the wonderful (and sadly missed) Jon Lord, modern classical music.

    Gavin Esler

  • The Cold War, Bosnia and Ukraine remind us that peace is fragile. Iraq and Syria remind us that no society or culture is immune from conflict.

    Gavin Esler

  • Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is now a good friend, and the thing that strikes you about him is that he’s all about details.

    Gavin Esler

  • Viewers don’t like rudeness, but they like us to be persistent.

    Gavin Esler

  • The very idea of a Party of God, Hizbollah, puts the fear of God into British hearts.

    Gavin Esler

  • I have my mother’s nose and my father’s bone structure, which I’ve passed on to my children. My eldest daughter and my mother, when she was young, could be sisters.

    Gavin Esler

  • A British politician who cloaks himself in the mantle of God is immediately regarded with suspicion.

    Gavin Esler

  • I feel very fragile cycling in London, whereas in Berlin there are proper cycle paths everywhere.

    Gavin Esler

  • My alphabet book at Duddingston Primary, Edinburgh, began traditionally with ‘a is for apple,’ but when it came to ‘g,’ it was ‘g is for gas globe.’ This was in the late Fifties; there hadn’t been gas globes for decades. The textbook must have been 30 or 40 years old!

    Gavin Esler

  • In Britain, politicians who openly discuss their spirituality are about as welcome as Jehovah’ s Witnesses on the doorstep, and the British associate the mixture of politics and religion as a heady cocktail best reserved for the mass irrationality of Northern Ireland, Iran, Kashmir, and the Middle East.

    Gavin Esler

  • With Bill Clinton, his lawyers always wanted him to say nothing about the Lewinsky scandal. Defendant Clinton had the right to remain silent. But President Clinton had a completely different need – political survival. That meant, in the end, that he needed to trumpet his supposed innocence and talk publicly to the American people.

    Gavin Esler

  • Mini-skirts, Prada and Agnes B are for New York and L.A. Washington is more America’s equivalent of Marks & Spencer.

    Gavin Esler

  • It’s perhaps easier to say what prog rock isn’t than what it is: it’s not three-minute pop songs, it’s not straightforward rock, metal, blues or jazz, but can have elements of all them and more. It’s a form that is on the boundaries of many different forms, that is open to all sorts of influences.

    Gavin Esler

  • Nobody is infallible, but it is important to have trusted guides when it comes to information.

    Gavin Esler

  • My father was a member of the Dunkirk Veterans Association.

    Gavin Esler

  • Brexit is turning out to be a really really bad meal. We ordered steak and chips and we’ve now got some raw chicken that smells bad.

    Gavin Esler

  • Brexit is not only not just about left and right. Brexit is about expertise.

    Gavin Esler

  • Doctors, dentists and nurses commonly take out malpractice insurance to pay for lawsuits. The trend has expanded to include hairdressers, accountants, vets, sports umpires and members of the clergy, all fearful of being sued for wrongful action or advice.

    Gavin Esler

  • In the Stephen Sondheim song, when something bad happens in the circus, they send in the clowns. In America’s political circus, they send in the lawyers.

    Gavin Esler

  • What mattered in the cold war was weight – how big are your missiles? How heavy are your tanks? What matters in globalisation is speed. How fast is your modem? How good are you communications?

    Gavin Esler

  • I want to stop Brexit.

    Gavin Esler

  • Government is not a game show, though at times it is amusing and entertaining to watch.

    Gavin Esler

  • Whether anyone has ever changed their mind as a result of a celebrity endorsement of a candidate is a bit of a mystery.

    Gavin Esler

  • My first day at Duddingston Primary is probably my first memory.

    Gavin Esler

  • I’m not anti-American. But I am very strongly anti American bacon – the worst bacon in the world.

    Gavin Esler

  • Grits really are food for the soul.

    Gavin Esler

  • We’re never encouraged by the producers to ask questions in any way. The most important thing to be is authentic and to be yourself. If I feel someone has answered a question then I’ll move on. If I feel it’s important enough, I will pursue the question.

    Gavin Esler

  • A magazine once asked my favourite beauty product and I said water.

    Gavin Esler

  • For me, prog rock has always been essentially British. It combines all our great and eccentric genius. We are not hung up on categories, rules and classification. We love people who break the mould, challenge us and make us think differently.

    Gavin Esler

  • I’ve never been a fan of party politics.

    Gavin Esler

  • There is a common British delusion that we ‘understand’ America. We don’t. Watching ‘Friends’ listening to Bruce Springsteen, eating at McDonald’s and visiting Disneyland does not do it.

    Gavin Esler

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