Gyles Brandreth
The Queen is frequently on her own, walking the dogs, riding her horses, playing patience, completing a jigsaw, sorting her photograph albums, watching television, phoning friends, doing the Telegraph crossword. Is she neglected? Is she suffering? Or does she simply understand her man?Collection: Patience
During the summer of 2000, in the run-up to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's 100th birthday, I asked the Duke of Edinburgh if he was hoping to reach 100. 'Good God, no,' he spluttered, 'I can't imagine anything worse. What a ghastly idea.'Collection: Birthday
When it comes to personal communication, words are all we've got. It is the simple use of language that makes us human beings.Collection: Communication
What happened between the sheets on the night of the royal wedding I cannot tell you. I was not there.Collection: Wedding
Prince Philip had formally 'retired' in the summer of 2017, a couple of months after his 96th birthday, because the Queen encouraged him to do so. She wanted to stop him 'pushing himself all the time'. She had become anxious about him.Collection: Birthday
And the purpose of small talk is not to be controversial, clever or even interesting. It's simply to fill the silent void with a small gesture of common humanity. It's a spoken smile, a verbal handshake.Collection: Smile
People find communication in families difficult - games can help with that.Collection: Communication
Playing games can contribute to making you happy, perhaps even without therapy.
Private weddings are becoming something of a family tradition. My daughter Saethryd married her husband Jason at Marylebone Register Office in 2005 while my wife and I had a lunch at Pizza Express.
It was Napoleon who said if you want to understand a man, look at the world as it was when he was 20. When the Queen and the Duke were in their early 20s, it's around 1940. Their values are the values of Britain in 1940; all that is best of Britain in 1940 is exemplified by the Duke.
A humorous quotation is a little window on the world that gives life a comic twist.
It's called 'Odd Boy Out' because as I was writing it I realized I was a bit of an oddity as a child.
I know I'm hated. Or rather, that people struggle with dislike for me.
There is an invisible moat around the senior royals.
'An Audience With Kenneth Williams.' My wife and I went with him to the recording. He was paid £10,000, the largest fee he had ever received and was so nervous he was shaking. But his performance was matchless. He knew it was the best thing he'd ever done.
When I was an MP, John Prescott barracked me in the House of Commons, shouting: 'Woolly jumper! Woolly jumper!'
I was lucky enough to know Prince Philip in his prime - the most dynamic man I have ever met. And I was privileged to know him almost to the end.
The private Prince Philip - the inner man - was infinitely more difficult to reach. He was more sensitive, more thoughtful and more tolerant than you'd expect, but he kept these qualities hidden.
Bob Hope said: 'You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.' And while this quote is generally amusing, it is even more amusing when you know he said that when he was old.
Was Prince Philip in love when he proposed to Elizabeth? At the time, he was a relatively penniless prince, with a rackety family and no home to call his own.
Several people have told me that Queen Elizabeth made slighting comments about Philip within their hearing, and referred to him - not entirely humorously - as 'the Hun.'
In many ways, Prince Philip was remarkably good-humored and long-suffering.
Among the upper classes, especially three or four generations ago, men and women had separate bedrooms. That's just the way it was.
I know that the Duke of Edinburgh's rule was, 'Don't talk about yourself, don't give personal interviews.' I know that, and I know he told his children that because he told me.
The fact that the Meghan and Harry interview was aired while Philip was in hospital did not trouble him. What did worry him was the couple's preoccupation with their own problems and their willingness to talk about them in public.
I thought I would be Prime Minister.
Life has not turned out as I hoped it would.
I met Ian McKellen queueing for returns and he said, 'Are you wearing your tights under your trousers?' and I said, 'How on earth did you guess that?' and he said, 'Because I'm wearing mine.'
It is exhausting to be giving one's all in the theatre, my first duty is to my paying public, of course!
I heard one woman say to another in the queue at a book signing: 'I shouldn't be buying this. He's a former Tory MP, you know.'
I mean, I am relatively pleased with myself and the world. But I don't assume that I'm liked.
When I was 11, at prep school, I was starring in the school play, editing the school magazine and standing as Conservative candidate for the 1959 mock election.
They're supposed to cure everything. Want a baby? Have a Brandreth pill. Don't want a baby? Have a Brandreth pill.
Business is not my forte.
To me Prince Philip was a hero and a role model - and a friend.
Contrary to the popular caricature of him, the Duke of Edinburgh was neither judgmental nor unfeeling.
I think the Duke of Edinburgh would have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to his death.
First and foremost, I am a writer. That's what I have spent my life doing.
I have been an MP and government minister.
I have been a print journalist.
I did once talk non-stop for 12 and a half hours, but it was to raise money for a worthwhile charity. At least, that's my excuse.
I own a lot of novelty knitwear and I think some of it's quite fun.
I regularly dream about the Queen. Apparently, millions of people do. I wonder who she dreams about?
My introduction to the Queen was disconcerting, to say the least. 'This is Gyles Brandreth,' said the Duke of Edinburgh cheerily. 'Apparently, he's writing about you.'
I'd known the Duke of Edinburgh over a period of 40 years, so I'd long been accustomed to his sense of humor.
Prince Philip was a funny man who liked to laugh and make others laugh.
Long after Mae West is forgotten, her words will live on.
People confuse being full of words with being terribly intelligent and informed.
People are always asking me on to quizzes - they think I know all the answers because I burble on so, but I don't do terribly well.
I suppose I am instinctively flirtatious. But not exclusively to women. I want to be liked.