Top 140 Karl Wiggins Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “If everyone’s going to think of me as a lunatic then I may as well benefit from it. At least it’ll redeem me from being mediocre.”

— Karl Wiggins

52. “Emperor Haile Selassie was certainly a defining figure in both Ethiopian and African history, and as Rastafarians revere Haile Selassie as the returned messiah, it’s possible that the routes of Rastafarianism are deep-seated in the Queen of Sheba. Trip on that! A queen who was part Genie, or Djinn, is possibly the focus of Rastafarianism.”

— Karl Wiggins

53. “Why can’t unemployed people clean toilets, remove graffiti from vandalised war memorials, clear wasteland or derelict areas, or even decorate public buildings such as community centres. They could work in charity shops or down the local tip, sorting people’s rubbish out. They could even look after cemeteries, cutting the grass, hedges and shrubs, keeping gravestones clean, or maybe even laying paving slabs for a new path. Or how about putting in raised flower beds in the park?”

— Karl Wiggins

54. “Through years of experience I’ve discovered that a liar will always look into his drink when telling a lie. But he doesn’t have a drink in a cab, and even if he did I’d have no idea as to whether he were looking into it or not.”

— Karl Wiggins

55. “Fergie always has a bit of sparkle to her, a bit of mischief in her eye. We all do, don’t we? Us Carefree Scamps? Fergie didn’t fit the mould. And for that, the Royal Family didn’t like her. But she didn’t care that they didn’t like her. When one window of opportunity closed, she simply threw a brick through the next window. And for that I like her.”

— Karl Wiggins

56. “Strange how the perspective changes with the point of view, isn’t it? Most people who claim to believe in the Bible don’t actually know what it says.”

— Karl Wiggins

57. “I think there’s something about certain people’s chosen ‘lifestyle’ which ages them. I can’t explain it any other way. Leaving school, building a career, getting old before their time as they take on more stress lacks that one essential element that we had oodles of as youngsters, and that’s fun. We had lively, buoyant and animated fun. We were carefree at an age when you’re supposed to be carefree. We were breezy, jaunty and happy-go-lucky.”

— Karl Wiggins

58. “Sir Richard Francis Burton was a cross between Indiana Jones and Captain Jack Sparrow, with perhaps a little piece of the warrior-poet Aragorn from Lord of the Rings thrown in for good measure. Or maybe I should rephrase that; all these swashbuckling film heroes, including probably John Rambo, may well have been loosely based on Burton and his life.”

— Karl Wiggins

59. “Cynthia was originally from Sierra Leone, and I loved the way those two dusky words rolled off her tongue. As we drove along I found myself fascinated with the deep “Oooooohhs” and “Aaaahhhhss” that made up her conversational speech patterns.”

— Karl Wiggins

60. “Wrong Planet people are charismatic and attractive enough to evoke empathy even though they often recklessly defy norms and social conventions, they can get away with being villains, often with nothing more than a cheeky smile.”

— Karl Wiggins

61. “The Apprentice: the candidates’ combination of being desperate, totally pointless yet surprisingly pompous is extremely watchable.”

— Karl Wiggins

62. “There is so much zest in life! It is perpetually and enduringly luscious.”

— Karl Wiggins

63. “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

64. “A lot of people are wary of us because we’re a little offbeat, but deep down they long to be like us. Always remember that court jesters, Bohemian scribblers, and warriors share similar personality traits, for deep down all of us are Warrior-Poets.”

— Karl Wiggins

65. “All Romani dialects – about 60 in all – contain Armenian words, proof if you will that the Lom Bosha passed through Armenia in the early 11th century, trading spices along the Great Silk Road, that network of ancient trade routes connecting China with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Romani traded Armenian carpets, silk, dyes, lapis lazuli and tin, and it’s no surprise that five capitals of Armenia are on The Great Silk Road.”

— Karl Wiggins

66. “The world needs us right now, more than at any other time, which is why so many of us are here. We are the riotous, reckless and rebellious people who from time to time tilt the world on it’s axis a little bit. The world needs that.”

— Karl Wiggins

67. “The Philosopher-Poet’s mind is always in the here-and-now when he’s with his tribe and elsewhere in the red universe when he’s on his own.”

— Karl Wiggins

68. “I hold a beast, a celestial being and a maniac inside of me. It’s up to you which one you meet.”

— Karl Wiggins

69. “If by now you are thinking of me as a nutcase, it’ll somewhat redeem me from being middle-of-the-road, which after all is what we’re all about. Not being so-so. Not being fair-to-middling. Not being run-of-the-mill.”

— Karl Wiggins

70. “If someone’s been signing on for six months with still no sign of finding gainful employment, then in order to continue to receive their Unemployment Benefit or Jobseeker’s Allowance they should complete at least 30 hours of compulsory work a week with the idea being that not only do they benefit their own communities, but this would also assist them in developing basic employability skills.”

— Karl Wiggins

71. “With a horse and cart, a ferret, a dog and a gun, who could not be happy?”

— Karl Wiggins

72. “Under no condition do you need to piddle away any time attempting to explain who you are to those wankers who act as if they’ve pledged to misinterpreting your very existence.”

— Karl Wiggins

73. “Life is the feel of a coral sunset over a slow-moving river. Memories of jungles and deserts and dark winds from Java. And if you really listen, you can still hear the high plains drums in New Mexico, for deep inside of you is the spirit of your past.”

— Karl Wiggins

74. “We took thousands of photos and missed millions of others.”

— Karl Wiggins

75. “The practice of an offbeat and sometimes bizarre lifestyle, often in the camaraderie of compatible people was incredibly romantic in the 19th century when authors, artists and entertainers lived in the low-class, substandard Gypsy ghettos of Western Europe and were often regarded as nothing more than vagabonds, globetrotters, opportunists, con artists and charlatans. They also practiced an open sexual liberation regarded at the time as quite a new morality.”

— Karl Wiggins

76. “She was abused and tormented, and despite all the drug abuse seemed to float through a world where she did not belong. Whatever went on behind those beautiful eyes, you cannot help feeling that only the fairies and leprechauns will recognise Edie Sedgwick.”

— Karl Wiggins

77. “It seems to me that although they have a respectable sales pitch, this business of a priest having the power to let bygones be bygones and grant us absolution from our scandals is all just one gigantic scam to con loads of money off a haunted and gullible public.”

— Karl Wiggins

78. “Many parts of Watford, especially around Vicarage Road Football Stadium, consist of scuzy warrens of Victorian terraced houses.”

— Karl Wiggins

79. “I do have a sneaking admiration for anyone who has the intelligence to plan a ‘job’ properly and the courage to carry it out. As long as no one gets hurt and the target is a bank or an insurance company.”

— Karl Wiggins

80. “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

81. “And then one day we found ourselves in a cornfield. After that it seemed like the whole world was made of corn. It was just the same cornfield over and over. I got to thinking that we’d suddenly be out of it and the Manhattan skyline would pop right up on the other side. But that never happened. The corn went on forever. But eventually we hit the slave state of Missouri, with its constant panorama of rural beauty.”

— Karl Wiggins

82. “In every glass of water we drink there are molecules once urinated by Genghis Khan.”

— Karl Wiggins

83. “Wrong Planet people often look younger than everyone else.”

— Karl Wiggins

84. “I may well be bringing fresh notions or concepts that will cause many people to think of me as a bit odd, but I’m okay with that, because maybe I’m just conscious and alive in a batty old world. That said, it doesn’t mean everyone will ‘get’ me, there are a million aromas and zings and zaps and tangs and wallops in the world. We all have a different piquancy. What I do mean, however, is that my tribe can find me.”

— Karl Wiggins

85. “Words are the writer’s hocus-pocus, our dark arts and our deception. They’re our charm and our temptation. Sometimes the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.”

— Karl Wiggins

86. “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

87. “Let’s be honest, Carefree Scamps have rarely been accused of being the epitome of virtue, and that’s because we intermittently break the rules. Yet despite this we are often charming enough for others around us to make allowances. “He’s just prone to being misled.”

— Karl Wiggins

88. “If a fairly substantial percentage of the money you and I work hard for is to be given to people too lazy to drag their arses out of bed at six o’clock in the morning, then we need assurance that they’re not spending our money on booze and drugs.”

— Karl Wiggins

89. “Keith Moon had no off-switch and there was no way of controlling him.”

— Karl Wiggins

90. “If a Shaman, sorcerer or medicine man attempts to convey insight, it’ll more than likely sound absurd to most people. Learning and culture can certainly be passed on to others, but not insight. You can discover it, allow it to exist within you, do magic through it, but you can’t teach it.”

— Karl Wiggins

91. “A real dish has grown from all the chefs who have combined their talents over the centuries to develop a meal with unique physical characteristics, for there’s not a chef on earth who can claim sole title to a particular dish. It will have typical Iberian or French features, but with traces of Indian, Celtic, Roman, Jewish and even Moorish culture in its savour, although food can’t possibly pass from one country to another without change.”

— Karl Wiggins

92. “The opinions, eloquence and articulacy of the man or woman on the street can often be as invaluable as precious stones.”

— Karl Wiggins

93. “Frida Kahlo had found her passion in colour, she painted with intensity and she cherished her loves with every ounce of her bones. She stood up for things of importance, and she never ever apologised for who she was.”

— Karl Wiggins

94. “The Warrior fights before he’s taught how. He just fights, and if you hit him he steps forwards towards you.”

— Karl Wiggins

95. “The Wrong Planet tribe are the pranksters, the court jesters, the comedians, the Bohemians, the flower children, the nomads and vagrants, the free spirits. Without these the world would be full of humans who are little more than robots.”

— Karl Wiggins

96. “Words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation.”

— Karl Wiggins

97. “Life picks us up and throws us around, but for the most part we’re aimed in the right direction where we can learn the lessons of our Earthwalk.”

— Karl Wiggins

98. “The banking institutions, my friends, are sailing under false colours. They are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. And we should never forget it.”

— Karl Wiggins

99. “Why should you and I struggle to pay our bills while some pisshead dopehead wanker spends OUR money on getting wrecked?”

— Karl Wiggins

100. “Rag Tags, you see, are absolutely free to do as they please, which for the most part is to imitate each other. And you only have to take a closer look at most youth culture groups to verify that. Mods and rockers, skinheads and greasers, teddy boys, suadeheads, chavs, emos, goths etc. all fear that by being different they’ll be left out in the cold. That’s why they’re Rag Tags.”

— Karl Wiggins