Toby Young
I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.Collection: Failure
Oddly, I do have a problem with authority. I find it very difficult to knuckle down and follow rules. Which are the classic symptoms of someone who has a troubled relationship with their father. And yet, I never had a problem with my father.Collection: Relationship
Teachers complain a lot about how tough their job is. But, you know, the day begins in most schools at nine o'clock, ends at 3.30 P.M. They have six weeks' holiday during the summer, two weeks' holiday at Easter and at Christmas. Yes, they don't just work when they're at school, but even so, compared to a lot of other jobs, it's not that tough.Collection: Christmas
America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.Collection: Failure
In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America.Collection: Failure
People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.Collection: Thinking
I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.Collection: Writing
It's very different doing a food show in America and doing one in Britain. I did a 20-part series for the BBC series called 'Eating With the Enemy.' The budget for all 20 episodes was probably the budget for a single episode of 'Top Chef.' It's the difference between making a home movie in your backyard and going to Hollywood.Collection: Home
I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.Collection: Missing
My life's ambition is to play a James Bond villain. I have the cat and the eye-patch, so I'm just waiting for the call. For some reason, though, the phone hasn't rung.Collection: Ambition
I was every Londoner's stereotypical idea of a brash, vulgar American. When I got here, it turned out that London was the Wild West, and New York was like London at the height of the Victorian era, in which everyone was far more obsessed with table manners and status-climbing than they are in London. In London, everyone was just crawling over this blizzard of cocaine. Here, if you have more than a glass of wine with your meal, people refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous.Collection: New York
I think I've been wishing for celebrity for so long that I've got used to being someone who's petitioning the establishment for acceptance... my whole schtick, my whole identity, is so wrapped up in being a petitioner that I don't really know how to react now that petition has been granted.Collection: Acceptance
You know when you tell a self-deprecating story at a dinner party, everyone's laughing along with you? But then when someone else repeats that same story at another dinner party you feel they're all laughing at you?Collection: Party
Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."Collection: Spiritual
I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.Collection: Writing
I don't envy young Brits crossing the Atlantic to make their fortunes today.Collection: Envy
I think that magazines like Vanity Fair are still operating under the old rules, and that if you come to work for a magazine like Vanity Fair, even today, you're certainly expected to treat people like Peggy Siegal very deferentially.Collection: Thinking
The moment I'm perceived to be even a tiny bit successful, my career will go down the pan.Collection: Successful
There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.Collection: School
I've never been to a shrink. But my parents were very psychologically literate - my father had undergone Freudian analysis - and we often talked about other people in psychological terms, so I picked up a lot of that.Collection: Father
I really like the Observer. I think I'd love to have a column with a broad reach that would enable me to do some proper reporting, but keep it on sort of a humorous level. I've always had a very happy experience writing for them.Collection: Humorous
I wouldn't describe myself as a master of anything.Collection: Masters
Top Chef is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.Collection: Running
I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering, but I realized I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work.Collection: Academic Work