Top 280 Clever Quotes

I would never create an image for myself; I’m not that clever.

The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick.

Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.

Throughout history, people have enjoyed playing both silly and clever games.

Usually, the leaders appear in the moment of the highest stress, when it is time, speaking symbolically, to go to the barricades. Then people, clever, capable, but focused on their own tasks, will leave their immediate occupations and go to the barricades, because there is nowhere to hide.

It has always seemed slightly uncomfortable, the idea of politicised musicians. Very few of them are clever enough to do it; if they’re good at the political side, the music side suffers, and vice versa.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, ‘I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.’ I wouldn’t have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn’t a clever man.

Under Pep Guardiola, it’s hard work. For me, Guardiola is one of the best coaches I’ve ever met. He’s incredibly clever and tactically really good, and he knows how to speak to us, how to motivate us, and that’s what it is like.

In the past, whistleblowers have had their desks moved to break rooms, broom closets, and basements. It’s a clever punishment, good-government activists say, that exploits a gray area in the law. The whole thing can look minor on paper. They moved your office. So what?

There’s a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.

I’m crazy. I know I’m crazy ’cause Desmond Tutu told me, and he’s very clever. He said, ‘You must free yourself, be more of who you are. Be more crazy.’ And I’m going to.

Jorginho is a very good player, clever, fast.

I rode my bike to school, I was the head girl, I played the violin, was really nerdy. I was really underweight, so I was really skinny and under-confident. But I had Doc Marten boots! So I was a bit of an outsider. And clever as well.

I don’t write just to be clever. But sometimes I do. And if you don’t have an understanding of the language, then the way in which it’s bent doesn’t actually register. It’s the old you-gotta-paint-like-them-before-you-can-paint-like-you thing.

The beautiful thing about comedy in the U.K. is that it has a clever twist to it, and when you really break it down, the joke isn’t filthy at all: it’s clever.

How long does it take to make ‘They Think It’s All Over?’ It’s just laughing at each other and thinking, ‘Aren’t we clever?’

In general, even when I’m not doing political comedy, I want to be clever and find the least confrontational way to say the most offensive things.

I wasn’t into making classmates laugh – or any of the comedy cliches. I wanted to disappear. I was a nonentity. I wasn’t too clever but I wasn’t in the bottom group. I wasn’t loud but I wasn’t quiet. I wasn’t a bully and I wasn’t bullied.

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

Simplicity is the key for me. I can’t write clever songs; I just can’t do it.

I have been doing technology foresight for a number of years now on the level of scenario design, primarily. I want to become more rigorous with research methodology and statistical methods. I want to shift from creating clever SF scenarios to being a professional forecaster able to make rigorous predictions.

It’s difficult to differentiate between a story that’s humorous and clever and one that actually makes people laugh out loud.

People forget how outcast ‘They Might Be Giants‘ can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft, funny, clever melodies, and they also make a lot of music for kids, which is terrific, but when you see them in concert, they can rock the house.

I’ve learned by experience that, if I get too clever with lyrics, or if I’m not totally embodying my own wants and needs in the songs, I can’t remember them.

‘The Others’ books take place in an alternate Earth where the Earth natives have been the dominant predators throughout the world’s history, and humans are nowhere near the top of the food chain. But humans are clever and resilient, if not always wise, and have made some bargains with the Others in order to survive.

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

On telly, if it’s not the right kind of show, I revert back to my ‘Girlie Show’ persona, become this daft, bawdy caricature of myself and I’m not actually like that, I’m actually quite – not clever, but smart with my words.

Everyone is different but I love to watch that type of football: the clever players, the technical players. The beautiful game.

You don’t need to be fast if you’re clever in your positioning, and that’s exactly what Mark Noble is.

To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization.

It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one’s being clever.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

I love ‘Girls.’ The writing is so clever. I think Lena Dunham is a genius. I can’t believe she writes it, directs it and stars in it. It’s really exciting that a young woman has been able to achieve all of that.

And out of a desire essentially to imitate what I was reading, I began to write, like a clever monkey.

The mistake is to think that clever technology can solve everything, but it can’t solve our relationship with nature, which is where I think it’s gone wrong in that we have somehow abandoned our proper connection with nature.

The real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever. I’ve got a brain! I would rather be called a highly intelligent historian than a gorgeous pouting one.

I think there is a basic comfort in clever people who know things.

To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.

I’m sorry to say it, but we have to be more arrogant and more streetwise because we are coming up against some great teams who have that streetwise mentality. They bring their play into it: you do what you have to do to win a game. Simple as that. Be streetwise and clever.

My favorite artist was probably Jay-Z. He’s the one who inspired me to start writing music. He’s a wordsmith. He’s very clever. He uses a lot of similes and metaphors. He’s a beast of a rapper.

From a gameplay standpoint, I’ve said for years that hero, fiction, and tone have nothing to do with the idea that choices have consequences. And that’s really what I’m interested in. I care about you showing how clever and creative you are.

One way to think of the tax system is as a massive Swiss cheese. Each hole is an exemption created by a chancellor in pursuit of good headlines – a hole waiting to be filled by the clever accountants who work for Starbucks or Jimmy Carr.

Compared with my brother, I always felt like Richard III, some clever humpbacked thing who surpassed him in the end. He was the one who read books, but I became the writer. He painted and drew, but I was the one who got accepted by the High School of Music and Art.

I left the Army in 2000 and went into industry before I started appearing on TV in 2003. My best job there was on a series called ‘Crafty Tricks Of War’ for the BBC. I loved that because it celebrated how clever and inventive people are and the ingenuity that goes into solving problems.

I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.

If somebody does a task really badly, then that’s better for us than if they do it really well. We always tell people when they get back to the green room after doing a task that they’ve cocked up, ‘You’ve actually really won that task, because people remember them more than the geniuses.’ No one likes the clever people.

I think I’m quite a clever player and that I realise there are times when I can be offensive but others when I must be more compact and work for the team, because that is what matters.

Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.

Hugo Strange is interesting in the sense that he’s a master manipulator. He doesn’t really engage Batman in any sort of physical way. His weapon is his mind, and he’s very incisive and clever: he reads people and sizes them up almost instantly.

After a while, you become really irritated that you’re not recognised as the person who wrote ‘The Full Monty.’ Everyone goes on about how lovely the characters are. That’s because they were written! ‘What a clever title.’ Yeah, that’s because I made up the title!

I have read books that are so cliched and lazy, my eyes have bled. But I also have read books marketed under the chick-lit umbrella that are so honest, clever and gritty that I’ve wanted to give up writing and paint walls instead.

I think that Obama is very cool. And I think he’s clever, and I think he can be witty. But I don’t think he’s funny in either the way that Reagan was funny – or John McCain and Dick Cheney are both funny in that ruthless, kind of mean way.

If you’re too methodical, too fearful, you’re not going to win. But the clever thing is to make the calculation correctly about where and when to go over the top. You’ve got to know when to push it and when to come back.

It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational – and I’m speaking the written science fiction, not ‘Star Trek.’ Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they’re clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.

Barca play a really clever type of football, close together with everyone at a high level technically.

I’ve never been clever with money. I will buy anything at the top of the market.

I sang ‘American Pie’ a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It’s a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune.

Tell me I’m clever, Tell me I’m kind, Tell me I’m talented, Tell me I’m cute, Tell me I’m sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I’m perfect – But tell me the truth.

I wasn’t the classic comedy type; I wasn’t bullied or extrovert. I was more the ambitious literary one who wanted to write clever little plays.

Bush is very clever. When the debate should have been about the deterioration of our cities and the lack of action by government, he sent in his idiot to make an outrageous statement about Murphy Brown.

A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.

Ronnie is a very clever winner. He will make sure that he does everything in his power to win the tournament. He is super-fit.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

My wife is a very clever woman. She knows when to say something and when to bite her tongue.

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.

There are a lot of songs that would ostensibly be a good candidate for parody, yet I can’t think of a clever enough idea.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Foursquare’s adoption of a game dynamic when it launched is a particularly clever implementation of a social hook.

Clever modern man is so witless that he thinks moral silence and empty conscience are an advantage.

One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

There’s been so many different types of musicals, and it’s a funny genre because there’s a fine line between clever and stupid. It really takes a genius to know how to do it.

I’ve only ever seen a couple tiny home spaces that are actually a clever use of space.

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.

I love characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catch up with. I think there’s something very appealing and rather heroic in that.

Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin’s lyrics often do – sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton’s and Bernie’s personal styles, no doubt about it.

A reveal should be unexpected and clever.

I don’t really wanna talk about politics, I’m not clever enough.

I was obsessed with country music when I was a kid, and it’s definitely had a huge influence on the way I write songs. I was always attracted to songs that had a brilliant pun or a clever turn of phrase, but came from a dark, bitter place. As a writer, I’ve always gravitated towards that feeling.

What I liked about ‘Get Out,’ which is so rare, is that there’s just as much focus on getting to know and care about these characters on top of the film being clever and scary.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

I do believe that even if you’re the most clever person around and you figure out the ‘whodunit’ and you’re not surprised – that shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying the story.

If you’re clever enough and creative enough to get a good film made, then you should be clever enough and creative enough to find ways to get it out there, one being something like Jameson First Shot.

In the early 60s, you read your essays to your supervisor rather than hand them in. I was both lazy and clever, and realised I didn’t need to write essays at all, I could simply talk with some notes in front of me.

When I was growing up, to be an emcee meant to write the most clever, intellectual, and wittiest rap. And that’s what we did.

I think ‘Rake‘ was a very clever crossover, actually, because it does lend itself to the city of L.A.

I never had any friends beyond a certain superficial level. We hate to admit weaknesses. We were raised to want to get ahead, to be good and clever and successful. You’re just ashamed to open up.

If something looks like a tax avoidance scheme, then that’s probably what it is – and there’s lots of clever people working day and night to close them down.

People talk about writing convincing teenagers like it’s a really clever thing to do, but it comes incredibly naturally to me. Which, of course, is slightly a worry.

I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.

Although finding fruit flies in your wine or beer can be a bit annoying, I hope people will pause to admire the tenacity of these clever little creatures. They are really just hungry animals looking for something to eat, and have no intention of ruining your happy hour.

I’ve driven all through America and I know there are a lot of clever people between the coasts. But they have a slightly old-fashioned view of the world. Whereas New York is one of the most multicultural, multiracial, tolerant places on Earth.

Sometimes I’ll jot a clever turn of phrase down. Sometimes I’ll just remember it.

It is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.

Appeasement was never a very clever policy, and it should not be our option today.

The more you know about somebody’s back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious!

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

I like clever songs. I like songs that make people think and I try to have substance in all my records, even with ‘Sweet Dreams‘ how it was a club record and it was up tempo, but it was melodic and it was, like, lyrical.

There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.

I love clever lyrics.

If you’ve got someone fighting your corner, someone who loves you and you love, and is also really, really clever, the battle is so much easier.

Social media teams can and do launch clever campaigns, but game-changing Social Business initiatives are typically driven by management teams.

It so depends on each script, because you can say… I always thought I wouldn’t have wanted to do something that was kind of like as big and commercial as ‘The Dark is Rising,’ but I really liked the script. I thought it was really clever.

A lot of consumers actively enjoy advertising, especially fashion print ads and clever TV commercials. The nostalgic cable channel TVLand features not only vintage shows but also vintage commercials.

I’ve always been accused of being too clever for my own good.

Modeling is not something you excel because you are clever but is based on physical appearance, but then you have to be a businesswoman, like, to keep your longevity.

Whether I’m making a gluten-free cookie or a lactose-free milkshake, my end goal is always to make it so awesome, clever, and creative that you’ll want to indulge whether you have a sensitivity, dietary nuance, or don’t.

There was Pauline de Rothschild, who I thought was very fabulous, and Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress, very chic, very clever, very original. I admired both those women very much. And I had a great example with my mother, who was extremely chic.

No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids – human beings built them, because they’re clever and they work hard.

My parents brought us up in a very clever way, which was that they saw what we were interested in naturally, and then they encouraged whatever that may be. When I started sharing a keen interest in drama and the theater, instead of steering me away from it, they encouraged me to see plays and think about drama school.

My host at Richmond, yesterday morning, could not sufficiently express his surprise that I intended to venture to walk as far as Oxford, and still farther. He however was so kind as to send his son, a clever little boy, to show me the road leading to Windsor.

People think I’m clever, which is hilarious. I’m like, ‘When did this happen? People used to think I couldn’t string a sentence together.’

Pol Pot – he rounded up anybody he thought was intellectual and had them executed. And how he told someone was intellectual or not was whether they wore glasses. If they’re that clever, take them off when they see him coming!

The point of doing TV is not to prove how clever you are, but to make other people realise how clever they are; and I think it’s the same with books.

Women are not stupid, but they were not clever enough to realise that feminism did not bring freedom, but the opposite. That’s why I’m glad feminism is dead.

DNA is a code of four letters; proteins are made up of amino acids which come in 20 forms. So the ribosome is a very clever machine that reads one language and operates in another.

I defend my position. I am not Messi. I am not Ronaldo. I have something else. I am not the quickest, like Walcott. I have to be clever and read situations. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to play Premier League. Everybody has a strength – this is mine.

I was one of five very clever kids, the other kids were cleverer than I was and still are and are very achieving. The girls were always first at everything and I was always 101st!

I tend to like simple music. And clever, succinct lyrics. Songs that don’t try to be more than they need to to be effective, to stir up something emotionally within you.

I like a clever guy, a real gent.

At Ajax, I got an education in how to be confident on the ball, my technique, and then, at Atletico, I learned how to defend. It was about the details, the ruthlessness; be clinical in front of your own goal, win every duel, be clever. I learned so much and, defensively, I grew there so much.

The key for me is movement. When the ball comes into the box, or when the wide players get it, that’s where I have to be clever and make my runs. That’s where I come alive.

I learned from both my parents that you had to be clever.

I was scared by social media – just scared of what I might attract. Once I broke onto that thing, because I needed it for my band to tell people about shows, I realized, 99 percent of the time, people are funny, clever, inventive, beautiful.

An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.

The great Chinese classics have always said that it’s better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought.

The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you’re listening to the song because they’re so seamless and clever.

I had very clever producers, who scheduled it brilliantly, but scheduling it was a nightmare.

The worst storyline I’ve ever been involved in I wasn’t involved in, because I was clever enough to get pregnant with my second child and they wrote me out and they replaced me with Christine Jones. And thank God – that was the worst storyline.

There was a period when STP and I weren’t making music – we weren’t getting along very good at all. But I had my studio, so I was writing and recording a lot of music. But something told me not to put it out. It was all stream of consciousness; it was clever, but it didn’t really have substance.

It was Martin O’Neill who said, ‘You’re a central midfielder.’ He put faith into players. He was very clever at getting into players’ heads, leaving little remarks to make me believe more. The players at Villa all moved up another level under him.

What I’ve found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.

He’s a very, very clever fighter, Manny, but you’d have to say the cleverest fighter in boxing is Mayweather. He adapts his style against whatever opponent he faces.

I made it to Oxford, but it is not that I am particularly clever, much more that I am a worker bee.

Ancelotti is very clever, very clever.

The guitarist always looks a bit clever because he’s got so many strings and apparently knows what to do with them.

I always thought ‘Of Mice and Men’ was such a perfect book because there’s nothing not to understand, but it’s still really clever and moving and complicated, but everybody understands the complication.

I’ve been very lucky to work in a newsroom where there are lots of strong, funny, clever women in senior positions.

You don’t have to dumb down – you just have to find a clever, good, secure man. I’ve found a couple – I’ve been lucky – but it’s probably hard for everybody to find that true love of a good man.

One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.

I think that the great presidents have always been a little more clever.

I like clever lyrics, funny lyrics, dumb lyrics. I can never put my finger on what I like about them.

I would’ve loved to dress Diana Vreeland. I just loved her work as a creative woman and as a business woman – unpredictable, exciting, fun, and very, very clever.

I’ve always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you’re there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.

If two smart, intelligent, clever guys sit together on a table, and you both want the same, where can be the problem? We all want to be successful.

Alison Carr on ‘Homeland.’ She was such great character to play, so clever and full of surprises. I was sad to see her go.

If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline.

In the morning, I never cleanse. I just splash my face with water and pat it dry. I honestly think that the human body is a clever thing and that the natural oils my skin produces are best for it. Then I apply a dab of rouge, and I’m off.

I’m sure Mark Carney is a very clever young man, but I think that the government would be mad to move from inflation targeting to money GDP targeting.

Arsene has most of the media in his pocket now and is almost – almost – affecting the officials so that you can’t tackle an Arsenal player. That’s something he’s very clever at working on and it’s almost working in his favour, you can see that.

A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest.

I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn’t realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

The way I see it, a clever cat prowls but calls home occasionally.

That’s the only show where, if anyone says to me, ‘Is there a role you want to play?’, I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim‘s so clever; it’s a profoundly brilliant piece of work.

Buying a matching blouse and skirt from the same store is a crime. A clever mix of chic and cheap hits the jackpot. Know how to mix styles and labels.

I’m obsessed with insects, particularly insect flight. I think the evolution of insect flight is perhaps one of the most important events in the history of life. Without insects, there’d be no flowering plants. Without flowering plants, there would be no clever, fruit-eating primates giving TED Talks.

Making clever speeches takes a lot of work and a lot of time.

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

I think being nice is more important than being clever.

I love lyrics that are not too clever.

I’m always trying to think of something clever and fun to do with the music. There’s so many cool things musicians and artists can do with their products.

As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you’d thought of.

A computational device is incapable of developing a mind. We got consciousness not just by being clever.

I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.

Yes, Vajpayee and Advani are very clever speakers, but that does not mean everything they say is true.

It’s not very hard to be clever. It’s far harder to be simple, obvious, and meaningful.

I wish I could say I was wise and clever, but I’m really not.

I have clients from 19 to 80 years old, and the way I work means that they can take the same dress and shorten, lengthen it, remove the sleeve, adjust details – and make it their own. They get a piece that is right for them. It’s a clever way of shopping in this economy.

I write my own quotes. Except this one. I obviously stole this from somebody really clever.

To be a head boy, you have to be very clever, you have to be a scholar, and I was never a scholar in any shape or form.

When I was young, I was clever enough to know that if I got married or had children, I would be eaten.

When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you.

Without wanting to sound pompous or clever it is down to me to make decisions on behalf of the side to give it the best chance of being successful.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I’d suggest it’s because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick.

I don’t think I see the world in terms of stupid or clever, but in terms of being able to get irony. There’s some awful statistic about only 20 per cent of Americans being able to understand irony.

You put anyone in the outfit, and they look like Gandalf. Not that clever.

There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience.

You just have to be clever about who you work with. Had I done Gap or H&M, there’s no way Louis Vuitton would have wanted to work with me. So you hold out for the big ones.

Awards sell tickets, and they’re a clever publicity stunt.

It took me at least all my 20s and some of my 30s to get the confidence to realise I could just write about what I wanted to write about without having to pass a test or look super clever.

My dad is a great manager. He’s not just competent – he’s very clever.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

People often get the wrong impression of Mick. The clever businessman is just one side of Mick. The other side is the same as the rest of us, a true rocker!

The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.

I have a fantastic husband. Here’s the honeymoon part: I still think he’s the funniest, wittiest, most clever man I’ve ever known.

In the quest to be clever, I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me.

If you’re going to take a jab at someone, you should at least have a bit more of a personal relationship with them. I feel like you can be funny and clever, as opposed to just outright vile.

I’m not clever enough or aware enough to make a political movie.

The differences between the top teams in Euro 2000 are so minimal that I think you have to be very clever in defence and stop your opponents getting opportunities.

The defenders can be clever and use everything within the laws of the game to stop the strikers scoring goals and, while some pulling is allowed, you need to be clever.

Wall Street is littered with clever plans to use financial instruments to change behavior – carbon trading, for example. Some have changed the world, and others failed miserably.

I had the taste of the alcohol since I was 11. It allowed me to be clever, charming and to behave outrageously. Acting also allowed me not to be me. So I could indulge every fantasy in this paradise of America.

He’s very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.

Don’t believe what the spiritual sharks and clever carnival hustlers tell you about fearless living – they lie.

As a quick, tricky player, I’ve been told that I don’t go down enough because I’ve always tried to stay on my feet or I don’t win clever fouls around the box. But when you are quick, the fastest way to be stopped is by being fouled so it happens to me a lot, even if I don’t always maximise the opportunity.

I wasn’t the brightest button in the class at school, but I enjoyed cooking and baking. I wasn’t clever enough at Maths O-level to get onto the cookery teaching course I really wanted to do, so I did a catering course instead.

Calling this ‘The Trial Of Christine Keeler’ is clever because it’s a re-examination of Christine’s life and the trials and tribulations that she went through including the court trial. We as a society are so quick to judge, and no one has been judged quite as much as she has.

Unfortunately scripts don’t chase me. I chase them. I struggle, battle, discard, pick it back, struggle further, plead with it, curse it, cajole and try to be clever. But it is invariably the script that rules.

I have watched Peppermint for years and I know how smart and clever and funny she can be with a lip-sync.

Educate men without religion and you make of them but clever devils.

Of course the job has a lot of glamour. But it really is about being smarter than your average bear. Your mind is your best weapon. It’s great when you’re a good shot with an AK-47, but it’s about being clever.

I’m a strange kind of author – I like assignments. I wasn’t clever enough to invent an iconic figure like Salander, but she’s my kind of girl.

There is no bore like a clever bore.

Starting probably with Janeane Garofalo and that era of stand-up ladies who were starting to be more brainy and strong and clever, guys started noticing those girls as sexy smart. I always called it smarxy.

I hate people who think it’s clever to take drugs… like custom officers.

I would like to say a few things about that photo in ‘Tatler’. I have no regrets. The article was about the 20 cleverest people in England, covered up only by the thing that makes them clever. A saxophonist, for example, had only his saxophone, and an artist, his easel. So I was covered by books.

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

Lord Birkenhead is very clever but sometimes his brains go to his head.

Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.

Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

I loved nearly all my teachers; but it was not till I went home to live at Oxford, in 1867, that I awoke intellectually to a hundred interests and influences that begin much earlier nowadays to affect any clever child.

The idea that if you are very clever you shouldn’t be an actor would be laughable in Russia.

Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.

Reductionism and elimination make one feel clever, but what happens when the meditator drops her fixation on feeling clever?

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

Of course, when you lose any game, the feeling is so bad. But you have to be professional and have to be clever and overcome this situation and try to work on that and try to fix the problem and solve for the next game.

I’m thick, actually. But it doesn’t bother me. I think I’m really clever.

I wasn’t necessarily the brightest in my family. I think my older sister was probably more clever, but I worked very hard.

I wanted to be clever, but being funny came first. That’s how you know someone is clever. They don’t come out and tell you pi to 13 places – they tell you a joke.

I was already in a band, and the teachers called my mum in and said: ‘Abbey‘s so clever, it’s a total waste if she follows her dream’. But I never wanted to do a job I didn’t love, and I’d always wanted to be a model or an actress or a singer.

What’s that one that people seem to like so much? ‘Fleabag.’ I watched that and it was that sort of Oxbridge ‘Oh, I’m so clever and witty, aren’t I?’ I don’t like that stuff. But then I don’t like ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ either. I like things that are clever but hide it.

I was born and brought up in Liverpool with my clever little sister Jemma, who is 14 and wants to be a vet. My mum Jane is an administrator and my dad Peter is a taxi driver.

The types of ideas protected by intellectual-property law typically don’t include a clever catchphrase on a Vine or a film idea in a tweet.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.

My left foot is not the strongest but I can be clever by going round somebody or using the right side of my foot.

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

To me, Stephen was my husband and the father of my children; one does not say to one’s husband, ‘Oh, you’re so clever! I must worship the ground under your feet, or in this case, wheels.’

Humans are not the fastest or the strongest animals on the planet, but when it comes to survival, we have had the unique advantage of being clever.

What I want to do is produce really delicious food. I want it to look nice, because when you see food you should want to eat it. You shouldn’t be saying, ‘Oh my goodness, isn’t the chef clever, he can weave the Eiffel Tower out of carrot sticks.’

Men are only clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.

I thought the marketing was really smart and really clever and unique at the time. It positioned ‘Saw’ as a horror film that was different from the other horror films that were in the crowded marketplace.

My main issue is trying to create shape, because I am like an upturned spring onion. I am bulbous at the top, then I sort of whittle away, and my feet are like the green bits. I try to create – with clever use of a skirt and tucked-in top – a waist and hips.

If a film is very clever and well-written, that’s what gives you freedom as a director.

It’s the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.

Yes, the rich will find ways to avoid paying more taxes, courtesy of clever accountants and tax attorneys. But this has always been the case, regardless of where the tax rate is set.

People may say that what I do is very clever, but it’s not really at all. It’s not Swift.

I’m not as clever as J.J. Abrams and those guys who fill it with all of these things for people to find.

Elvis Costello’s song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It’s storytelling and it’s deeply intelligent and clever.

I think people really appreciate clever commercials, as do I. I think they’re very entertaining. You just have to wade through all the garbage. That’s one of the reasons people watch the Super Bowl. A lot of them watch it to see the commercials and not the actual game.

I wish I were one of those terribly clever people who, when they write their autobiographies, always say, when I was fifteen months old I distinctly remember my Aunt Fanny saying to me, etc.

I rate Dave Luiz as a top defender. He’s very clever. But I don’t know if he’s as quick as me. And if he kicks me, he kicks me. It’s fine. I can’t react to anything.

Ive always done accents and stupid voices. But I went to school in Hampstead, where most of my mates were Jewish, and Jewish North London humour is so clever that I never thought I was funny.

If you’re not very clever you should be conciliatory.

It’s clever, but is it Art?

I’m just so comfortable talking about my private life: I just think because I’m not that clever.

He’s extremely clever and I learn always so much when I fight with Lewis. He always knows exactly what you are going to do next with his experience, and that’s what makes him so good on track with the battles. He’s not very aggressive, always very correct, but always very good to anticipate what you are going to do.

There are many comics around who don’t really have a feel for comedy. They can say outrageous things, have clever thoughts, and deliver some funny angles. But they are not genuinely funny.

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.

Mike Leigh taught me about making choices – as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it’s always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground.

The great help of being in the Army is to understand why are the armies clever in what they describe as emotional intelligence, making soldiers come to terms with the death of comrades by certain rituals.

Calvin was very clever. We did the pictures and made the commercial, and that really worked.

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

Roman military tactics were much over-rated. All the clever ones had the same idea, which was to go round the back.

Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.

A man likes his wife to be just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness, and just stupid enough to admire it.

The stability of what’s called the Standard Model of particle physics and its ability to make so many clever predictions with immense precision suggests that we may just be stuck with it, and there may never be an overthrow of that.

Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them.

In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science.

As a small kid, I had this huge desire to be thought of as really clever.

The clever, albeit fragile, coalition against terrorism brought together by the U.S. government might be able to advance the transition from classical international law to a cosmopolitan order.

No one wants to know how clever you are. They don’t want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.

Lots of us when we’re children believe ‘oh well, if the world knew us as we really are, they’d know what wonderful, clever, brilliant, charming people we really are.’

I’ve done five films directed by women. I did like it. They had qualities, particularly in the romantic tenderness of scenes. I felt sometimes they were a little bit soft, but maybe they were clever to get the guys working the way they wanted them to.

The concept of Shwopping is so clever, I think. The idea is that every time someone goes shopping, they can take an unwanted item of clothing and pop it in the recycling bin in their M&S store for Oxfam.

This is football, so you need to be clever to understand the moment and win games.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits.

Tiptoeing on a tightrope past insider trading laws may be deft and clever, but it doesn’t make it right.

When you make a movie, you really have to be clever and smart, find something new for the worldwide audience because you aren’t making a movie for just France or Germany; it’s for everyone in the world.

We have all this very clever technology and all these abilities to manipulate the world in all these ways, yet we are faced with the very real question of whether we can be sustainable on this planet – whether or not, in fact, we can endure.

I was so lucky. I grew up with an incredibly strong grandmother, mother and sister. All three, independent, fierce, clever women who were hard workers, had goals and visions for themselves, and were really ambitious. And, they didn’t apologize for those goals.

In today’s world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we’re only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough.

In the battle of existence, Talent is the punch; Tact is the clever footwork.

Mourinho is a fantastic manager, intelligent, clever. He is OK.

Everyone can write jokes and makes things clever.