Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I think ageing suits me because I was born old, like Spencer Tracy or Dolly the Sheep.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

At the same time as we were seizing the lands that we turned into Iraq, we were devising an interesting future for our new protectorate in Palestine, and simultaneously trying to pacify Ireland, where we hit upon the solution of partition in 1921, thereby securing a peaceful resolution to the conflict only 86 years later.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

The image of my face I hold in my mind is always about 10 years out of date.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I'm not terribly ambitious, not terribly driven.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

Instead of people thinking, 'Oh God, look at this terrible refugee crisis; we must do our bit', there's a lot of people thinking, 'How can we get out of doing our bit and find reasons not to provide sanctuary for these people?'

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

The thing that interests me most about family history is the gap between the things we think we know about our families and the realities.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

Being in the latter stages of life means the morning is unkind to the reflection. It takes a few hours for the creases to fall out. By about 4 P.M., I look quite nice.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

My maternal grandmother had what might be described in a school report as a 'lively imagination.' She told us that she was a direct descendant of Sir Christopher Wren.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

For me, ancestry is just one thing that connects us to people, and feeling connected to other people is generally a good thing, as long as one kind of connection does not have primacy over all the others. Heredity, race and nationhood are not the best criteria by which to judge our fellow humans.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I love many places to which I have no connection, but identifying an ancestor, or someone I think is an ancestor, has taken me to places I'd never have gone to otherwise.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I'm in the intriguing position of being a friend of Jeremy Corbyn and knowing him personally. It's quite a strange position to know somebody that's in the news and know the person who they're talking about and taking pictures of.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I feel that our attitude to our borders is wrong; it's the first time that an awful lot of people think you can and should just close your border and remain in this splendid isolation.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I tend not to look back on old clips of myself or look at things I wrote or listen to something from the radio 30 years ago: I remember them, but it feels like someone else.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

Titles always sound so pretentious, and when I see a comedian, I just want the person to take flight, not stick to one topic or subject.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

For years, I've mocked Norfolk and King's Lynn, and now I find out I'm from there!

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I've always thought I'd like to be something more exotic than C of E. I can't even say I'm lapsed. You don't lose your faith when you are Church of England - you just can't remember where you left it.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

I suppose I would like to find out more about my grandparents because I knew them when I was too young to grasp that they were interesting people. They were my grandparents, source of treats.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

My idea of family is not dominated by blood ties. Families are fragile things, and I think it is social pressure and emotional attachments that keep them together.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

Apparently, some physicists argue that time is curved. I suppose this means that the past is in some way still present.

Jeremy Hardy
Jeremy Hardy

Chemistry seems to be pretty much nailed down, and biology gains ground all the time. But physics seems to be mired in idle rumination. They think a Big Bang started the universe, but they don't really know.