This weekend, British journalism lost one of their brightest stars. Just three weeks after announcing that he had the ‘full English’ of cancers, AA Gill unexpectedly and suddenly died in his bed at Charing Cross Hospital this weekend. Gill was a true eccentric in every sense of the word and a true world icon for British journalism and entertainment. To remember his unique and bountiful character, here are some of his best ever quotes:
America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.
The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule
The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas
Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life
The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows
You either get the point of Africa or you don’t. What draws me back year after year is that it’s like seeing the world with the lid off
I don’t know how long a child will remain utterly static in front of the television, but my guess is that it could be well into their thirties
Pasta is eaten by happy smiley people having fun with people they love or fancy and are about to shag. Noodles are eaten by people who have no friends
I've got an embarrassment of cancer, the full English. There is barely a morsel of offal that is not included. I have a trucker's gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty malignancy
I realise I don’t have a bucket list; I don’t feel I’ve been cheated of anything. I’d like to have gone to Timbuktu, and there are places I will be sorry not to see again. But actually, because of the nature of my life and the nature of what happened to me in my early life – my addiction – I know I have been very lucky
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