Sue Wiggins > Sue's Quotes

“You see what your mother-in-law hasn’t yet realised is that she’s the one who needs to hold out the olive branch, not you, because she’s the one who’s going to want to come around more and more in the future to see her grand-kids. SHE needs to make friends with YOU, not the other way around.”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“What kind of a turnip are you? Are you fucking stupid? She didn’t shag these blokes out of revenge. She shagged them because she wanted some dick!”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“Words are the writer's sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They're our enchantment and our temptation”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“They drain you sometimes. They really do.

"What's it all about then mate? What's the secret of life? You should know. You're a fucking cab driver."

Yeah, right. (As if I'll learn the secret of life talking to arseholes like you all night).

"Got any saucepan lids, mate? I've got two. I hate them. Bastards, they are. Ruined my life. I hate the bastards."

I keep quiet

"Don't try and rip us off, mate. I've got a key between my knuckles."

(Whatever).

The life of a cab driver. Glimpses into other people's lives.”
― Karl Wiggins, Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab

“It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad’s garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who’s just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There’s no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there’s a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It’s a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we’re wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It’s acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it’s a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever.”
― Karl Wiggins, Self-Publishing In the Eye of the Storm

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You’re not supposed to agree with everything I say. It’s okay to disagree. It doesn’t make you right and me wrong, and it certainly doesn’t make me right and you wrong. It’s just opinion. So it’s not whether you agree with my opinions or not that matter. What matters is that you respect them. And conversely that I respect your opinions. You can disagree with me, you can argue with me, and you can be different from me, but don’t ever try and shut me up.”
― Karl Wiggins, 100 Common Sense Policies to make BRITAIN GREAT again

“In an age when most black women belonged to the ‘servant class’ – sweeping the yard, making the beds, cooking etc. – Bessie, orphaned at five, asked the Irish lady who took her into her home in Boston when she lost both her parents if she’d buy her a motorcycle.
And with the simple advice, “Just don’t get hurt” and even though “nice girls didn’t go around riding motorcycles” her adoptive mother bought her a 1927 Indian.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“The message? Do not fuck with your ears! The damage done is irreparable!”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“Bessie Stringfield epitomised the Carefree Scamp. She wasn’t trying to be any sort of inspiration for black women or female bikers. She was just living her life. It was her road and she knew that no one else could ride it for her”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“At the tender age of 19 Bessie Stringfield commenced traveling across the United States. She’d toss a penny onto a map of the States and wherever it landed was where she’d go, and this was at the height of racism at its ugliest, yet this never stopped her. Though often denied accommodation because of the colour of her skin, she would find a place to sleep with black families or, if this wasn’t possible, she’d simply sleep on her motorbike at filling stations, using her rolled up jacket as a pillow”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Choose carefully. Avoid Rag, Tag & Bobtail. Avoid those who play it safe. They won’t offer a helping hand, and they can’t advise you. They’re boring, and that’s just about all that can be said about them. They are dead and obsolete. That’s it. They exist, they happen, but they don’t actually live.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“A lot of us for instance are very good at our jobs but absolutely hopeless at job interviews. Does this sound like you? You rock up for the interview full of confidence, you know full well you can fill the position easily and possibly better than most, you’re friendly, outgoing, and personable, and you scare the shit out of the interviewer.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Interesting how some words that hold basically the same meaning can have different connotations. Take ‘outlaw’ and ‘criminal’ for instance.
‘Outlaw’ has an almost romantic, nostalgic meaning – you tend to think of Jesse James or Robin Hood when you think of outlaws. Billy the Kid has been described as both a ‘notorious outlaw’ and a ‘beloved folk hero.’
‘Criminal’ however has a completely different connotation. We think of muggers, burglars, armed robbers etc.
Nobody really wants to have a ‘criminal’ in their family tree, but the idea of having ‘outlaw blood’ is exciting and glamorous”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Our life was so extraordinary and passionate, so intense if you like, because we were around each other all the time. We socialised together, and we worked together, and we loved together.
When we all set off for our first season on the South coast of England - what we were really searching for was our tribe. Something about those years was the bringing together of ‘our tribe.’
These are the people who shaped me. We’re the pranksters, the misfits, the bohemians, the court jesters, the comedians, the crackpots, the Carefree Scamps, the nomads and free spirits. Without people like us the world would be full of humans who are little more than robots
I love chaotic human beings, people who don’t follow the rules, who can’t be categorised, but whose loyalty is stronger than blood, and whose integrity is hard as nails.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“If someone drowned at sea a couple of hundred years ago they’d either start to decompose immediately or they’d get eaten by fish or other scavengers. The bones would eventually sink down to the seabed and either be slowly buried by marine silt or broken down further over the years, but the flesh would one way or another eventually become water, which would evaporate into clouds and then rain down upon the earth once again to become plants and flowers.
The flowers in your garden could once have been famous pirates such as Blackbeard or Calico Jack.”
― Karl Wiggins, Shit my History Teacher DID NOT tell me!

“Above all else, be true to yourself. Do what YOU want to do. Walk alone and be your own judge. It’ll be a bumpy road sometimes, but you’ll carry yourself a little taller at the end of each and every journey. In the end nobody except you cares whether you run your life at the beck and call of everyone else or whether you choose to be a Warrior-Sage, living your own life.
And that’s the way it should be.”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“The music was intended to replicate or even enhance the mind-altering experiences of the psychedelic drugs. They were using electric guitars, wah-wah pedals, loop music to create ostinato patterns, electric organs, synthesizers (nobody even had any idea what that was at the time, but it was cool to throw it into a conversation), electro-mechanical polyphonic tape replay keyboards, fuzz box effects, backward tapes, you name it. Anything went”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“And remember this, Jimi’s music was originally Mississippi Delta blues. His influences were blues giants Muddy Waters and Albert King. But he fell head-over-heels in love with British rock. And so you have a guy who just didn’t fit in AT ALL”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Remember, this was an era where you were defined by the music you listened to and the clothes you wore. You wouldn’t find a skinhead listening to King Crimson, or a Rocker listening to blue beat or reggae. It wasn’t allowed.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“I’m the guy who finds the fucking cat”
― Karl Wiggins, 100 Common Sense Policies to make BRITAIN GREAT again

“Arsenal fans are without a doubt the dullest supporters to have visited here for a long time.
They’ve only got one chant, 'Ars-suh-nul! Ars-suh-nul! Ars-suh-nul' and that was it. But for most of the game they were incapable of even managing that”
― Karl Wiggins, Gunpowder Soup

“Let's face it, if what you do is good, then you have God's blessing anyway. And if what you do is bad, then a priest's blessing isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference”
― Karl Wiggins, Shit my History Teacher DID NOT tell me!

“We look at the way some kids behave and instantly blame the parents, and more often than not we’re correct. The school bully is often a sign of poor parenting. That’s the immediate cause, but if we search for the root cause we have to dig much deeper than that. What on earth in that kid’s head makes it seem okay to bully people? Why are the parents doing such a poor job of bringing up their children? Probably because they didn’t have very effective role models themselves when they were growing up. It could go back generations”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“Millwall fans are an earthy bunch, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but many of them lack social graces, and the demographics are far removed from architect’s impressions of the New Den, which is a superb ground”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“For a shy person it’s hard enough to overcome self-consciousness and establish personal relationships with others without having the additional hindrance of a well-meaning but misguided relative who only emphasises that person’s limitations”
― Karl Wiggins, You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?

“When leaving the ground, our ears were assaulted by language that you wouldn’t normally hear on a building site. In fact, most people in construction wouldn’t normally swear in public or in front of children. It appeared to me that the men in their twenties using these words were doing so on purpose, perhaps to make themselves appear ‘hard’ amongst other Millwall supporters, or to intimidate the opposition. But looking at them, they were pigeon chested and weak armed, and I suspected their use of foul language was intended to boost their stature to compensate for their lack of physical strength”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“Why should we pay a percentage of the bill in a restaurant as a tip? If I order a beefburger for £12 and you order a steak for £38 does it require any extra effort on behalf of the waiter to bring your steak from the kitchen than it does to carry my beefburger? No, and yet at 12.5% you’ll pay £4.75 tip while I’ll only be expected to pay £1.50. For the same amount of work. And the same holds true if you order a more expensive bottle of wine than me”
― Karl Wiggins, Gunpowder Soup