Ben Schott Quotes & Sayings

I'm a firm believer in thinking inside the box. The first thing I do when approaching a new project is to give myself rigid guidelines and precise limits. That's how I begin to think. If I were told that I could create anything in any medium, using any amount of space and any amount of time, I'd stand in a field and scream. — Ben Schott

I always wanted to be a photographer. While I was at school, I got a lab-monkey holiday job in the darkrooms at the 'Independent.' What they taught me there was: you need to get the whole story in one frame. — Ben Schott

The radio's pretty much always on, and I also listen to some American podcasts, such as for 'National Public Radio' and 'Newsweek'. — Ben Schott

I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms. — Ben Schott

I have the luxury of getting up quite late, so I hardly ever set an alarm clock. — Ben Schott

I never read articles about my books. — Ben Schott

Writing 'Schottenfreude' has reinforced the fact that there are few, if any, emotions that have not been experienced, and analyzed, by some of the world's greatest writers. — Ben Schott

For me, writing is like being taken on a walk by a footnote: It's amazing where you end up. — Ben Schott

A great deal of American T.V. viewed on Hulu, which is superb - '30 Rock', for instance, is on very good form. — Ben Schott

I read the papers online, and something usually piques my curiosity - that will then be the baseline of my research for the day. — Ben Schott

I spend a lot of time looking at rococo books. And almanacs used to be huge sellers - they were pretty much part of the fabric of life. I thought, this is bizarre, I'd love to buy a book like this, and there isn't one. So I thought, all right then, this could be fun. I'll write an almanac. — Ben Schott

If I'm researching something strange and rococo, I'll go to the London Library or the British Library and look it up in books. — Ben Schott

The web can be a fast trip to the library, giving you immediate access to a government report, or it can filter media for you, which is why I look at around 15- 20 of these sites every day. — Ben Schott

I follow blogs, particularly all the main political ones - Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, Coffee House, Paul Waugh, Iain Martin in the Wall Street Journal, and so on. And some American ones, like the Huffington Post, Gawker, Boing Boing; or Eater and Daily Candy, also American, which are about where to go to eat. — Ben Schott

For me, photography only stopped because I was selling books. — Ben Schott

The idea that I am cynical because I'm writing the books that I write is a bit like someone saying, 'What, you've done a second album? Oh, I see, cashing in on your first album, are you?' But I'm a musician! It's sort of what I do. — Ben Schott

I'm very fond of an old map of London that used to belong to my father. I'm a big London fan, and the evolution of the city is astonishing, when you look back to Pepys and how small it was - everyone knew each other. — Ben Schott