Top 140 Karl Wiggins Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “In ten days and 3000 kilometres we never even scratched the surface.”

— Karl Wiggins

52. “There is nothing more annoying than somebody who is really thick but who believes with absolute conviction that he is more intelligent than you. In other words, they tend to be very self-contained, introspective and deep down they’re probably striving for affection. Yet they have no way of going about attaining this, so they tend to rub people up the wrong way.”

— Karl Wiggins

53. “The Scamp’s devil-may-care attitude often means that he or she is sexually desirable to other people.”

— Karl Wiggins

54. “Quotes from Ancient Greece are mostly all bollocks.”

— Karl Wiggins

55. “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

56. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

58. “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

59. “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

60. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

62. “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

63. “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

64. “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

65. “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

66. “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

67. “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

68. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

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

— Karl Wiggins

71. “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

72. “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

73. “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

74. “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

75. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

77. “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

78. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

80. “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

81. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

83. “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

84. “A real piece of writing is one in which the writer has tried to enrich not only the book, but also his understanding of the words. The words themselves have to be open to new ideas and suggestions, and the writer himself must have the audacity to attempt new things and to risk failure.”

— Karl Wiggins

85. “Go searching for your own tribe! And at no time conceal or camouflage your true self. You never know who may be out there watching and trying to spot exactly who you are.”

— Karl Wiggins

86. “The joining of humans and Djinni in marriage is still practiced in some parts of the world, and the Queen of Sheba was rumoured – by both the Jews and the Arabs – to be part Djinn.”

— Karl Wiggins

87. “You can understand how the same word used to describe Gypsies in Western Europe came to also describe the poor artists of the Parisian slums.”

— Karl Wiggins

88. “The incandescent, phosphorescent truth is that whatever you’re facing – bankruptcy, unemployment, loss of a spouse – isn’t going to kill you.”

— Karl Wiggins

89. “The Warrior-Sage will get focused, turn the power on and concentrate on the job at hand. And by doing this he is an effective role model for others around him. One way or another, he will get the job done. And if he finds himself in a situation that he is unable to change he will simply shrug his shoulders, go inside himself and wait it out.”

— Karl Wiggins

90. “I write in my head on the way home from work, or when mowing the lawn, or on a night out with friends. Sometimes I find the time to capture those words that are rolling through my mind, quivering and drumming and swimming, banging into each other until I can finally trick them and leak them out onto the page. And sometimes I don’t. Writers are like that.”

— Karl Wiggins

91. “When I was young I lived in several different countries, and we HAD to find work because there were no welfare state options open to us in those countries. And do you know what? We went out and found work. We had no choice.”

— Karl Wiggins

92. “Have you seen the state of some of these vegetarians? They look like they’re going to drop down dead any minute. We didn’t fight our way to the top of the food chain to be vegetarians, did we? Can you imagine a fry-up without the sausage and bacon? Or not being able to order steak, egg and chips? Can you imagine Christmas dinner without the turkey? Or a barbeque without the ribs?”

— Karl Wiggins

93. “Every one of the big breakthroughs in the art of literature have possibly started as what many would call a ludicrous or even laughable idea as the writer occasionally balances a routine piece with an investment in the eccentric and untried. Over time, the reward is usually worth the risk.”

— Karl Wiggins

94. “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

95. “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

96. “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

97. “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

98. “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

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

— Karl Wiggins

100. “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