Top 140 Karl Wiggins Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “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

102. “For the most part policy-makers are too nervous about offending people, yet when BRITAIN really was GREAT that was the last thought on our minds.”

— Karl Wiggins

103. “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

104. “Whilst the food we eat nowadays has much to be grateful to the likes of Marco Polo, Alexander the Great and Vasco De Gama, who would have introduced the tangy flavours of South Africa’s Rainbow Cuisine on his way around the Cape of Good Hope to India, Arabic cuisine, with spices of cinnamon, cloves, saffron and ginger was a lot more enterprising than Western cooking at the time. The medley of colours that the spices offered the food had mystical meanings to the Arabs.”

— Karl Wiggins

105. “If you’re fit and healthy and capable of mending a fence or stacking shelves, and you’re not doing either of those things, then I say you don’t get the right to vote. I don’t want someone who’s too lazy to get a job making decisions on how this country should be run.”

— Karl Wiggins

106. “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

107. “On June 23rd 2016 we took the opportunity to abandon this sinking ship captained by failed politicians and unelected crooks. But we’ll still trade, we’ll still holiday abroad and America will still ask us to stand Shoulder-to-Shoulder with them in ‘their’ fight against terrorism.”

— Karl Wiggins

108. “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

109. “Janice Joplin was uninhibited and raw, a combination which when blended with her stormy and tempestuous lifestyle was irresistible.”

— Karl Wiggins

110. “I’ve sat in restaurants and viewed the food on the plate as I would a half-blooded mongrel. I may feel sorry for it and given time even get to like it a little, but it’s never going to really gain my affections. The plate in front of you should tantalize, seduce and enchant you. It should be a cheeky devil, a minx, a hussy even, but never a desperado.”

— Karl Wiggins

111. “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

112. “As they call last orders, he’ll walk over to a girl he’s no doubt slept with before, pour half his pint over his own head and the remainder over hers, and with a twinkle in his eye say, “Looks like you’ve pulled again, doesn’t it?”

— Karl Wiggins

113. “There is nothing more annoying than somebody who is really thick but who believes with absolute conviction that he is more intelligent than you.”

— Karl Wiggins

114. “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

115. “Americans tend to think that korma is the curry of choice for the Caucasian, and it is if you’re a white guy with no balls.”

— Karl Wiggins

116. “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

117. “Magic can be so draining.”

— Karl Wiggins

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

— Karl Wiggins

119. “You feel as if your Earthwalk is a mission of some sorts, but you can’t quite remember what that mission is, and whatever it is you don’t seem to be accomplishing it. In other words, you’re a little bit disheartened. And maybe a little touched.”

— Karl Wiggins

120. “I know for a fact that if a country took me in and offered me assistance, I would be on my best behaviour forever! I would show total respect to the people of that nation and their laws. And I certainly wouldn’t expect special treatment.”

— Karl Wiggins

121. “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

122. “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

123. “There are hundreds of thousands of musicians, artists, painters, poets, writers and bricklayers, and we certainly need walls, music and art, but I truly believe that what some of them do comes from a higher source.”

— Karl Wiggins

124. “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

125. “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

126. “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

127. “Arsenal play pretty-boy football. Good to watch on the telly, but there’s no real grit in their play.”

— Karl Wiggins

128. “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

129. “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

130. “People invariably ask Carefree Scamps, “Where did you get that jumper?” or, “Where did you get that dress?” The answer is quite possibly Camden Market, but they won’t be able to remember. They’ll simply answer something like, “I dunno, I’ve had it for ages.”

— Karl Wiggins

131. “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

132. “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

133. “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

134. “We took 9000 fans to The Emirates to play Arsenal in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, and we sang non-stop. But the place is a bloody library! About every twenty minutes or so their 40,000 crowd would half-heartedly sing their Ars-suh-nul song, and to encourage them we’d give them a round of applause. But even that didn’t work. Whatever we did we couldn’t give their fans the much-needed boost they evidently needed to support their own team.”

— Karl Wiggins

135. “The ability to step aside from the rest of the world has given the Gypsies a lot of survival skills to match their really dark sense of humour. The Gypsies are survivors.”

— Karl Wiggins

136. “New Agers can often be a precious breed of born-again goody-goodies. They are unbelievably delusional about their own spirituality, fully believing they’re the reincarnation of Julius Caesar or Cleopatra.”

— Karl Wiggins

137. “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

138. “He was incorrigible, yet you can’t help but love him. His devil-may-care attitude, his brash nature and his vivaciousness aligned with his self-assertive and fearless nature gave birth to a Star who most people will, never, ever see the likes of. People like Sixteen-String Jack are wild, untameable and impossible to forget.”

— Karl Wiggins

139. “We owe shelter and welfare to people who were either born here or people who show a desire to not only integrate but become useful members of society. And certainly, nobody else.”

— Karl Wiggins

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

— Karl Wiggins

141. “Over the last few years I’ve felt as if I’m a walk-in, as if some kind of soul transference has taken place, as if a different soul – well, me I suppose – had just walked into my body and picked up my memories.”

— Karl Wiggins

142. “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