Michael Portillo Quotes

As a young boy, I had the usual hobbies - sports, baseball cards, model airplanes and trains. But I always had a distinct fascination with trains.

I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.

I have written stories, essays, even whole books on trains, scribble-scribble.

I think what initially attracts many kids to trains are the 'cool' things: strength, size, agency, speed. But trains also operate within a world of systems, schedules, codes, and fine distinctions. Enter the geeks. What I personally love most about trains is that they are transporting, that they take us places - literally and otherwise.

I love trains. I don't even mind First Great Western, which is a stupid name because it implies every carriage is first class, but they're not.

I had beautiful bikes and I was really into it. I just thought it was really glamorous.

As a kid I collected stamps, pebbles on the beach, anything. I liked to have at least 10 of something.

I definitely went through my magic phase. I think all little boys do at some point or another - they get fascinated by magic tricks.

I'm rather proud of having been a trainspotter.

Like most boys, I had a model train set up in my bedroom, resting on a little-used ping-pong table upstairs.

I've been an avid collector since I was a child.

Who doesn't like playing with a railway? I think we've all got Thomas the Tank Engine in our blood.

We all know a lot about something. We all have a passion about something.

I had heard stories about witches flying on a broom as a kid and I would always think, wow, they had their own private jet.

When I was a little boy, there was no sound in the movies.

Are you kidding? They had me at 'Star Wars.' The kid inside me would've clawed his way out and strangled me if I'd turned this job down.

For me, antiques are a passion.

When I was 13, my parents bought me a mini snooker set for my birthday. From the moment I first held a cue in my hands, I was transfixed.

My dad was an early hip-hop fan.

I've always been a collector at heart.

I've been watching wrestling since I was three years old.

I liked how 'Star Wars' felt both old and new. I even built a model of R2-D2, taking about two months mixing two kits to make one that looked just like the real thing. I'm the kind of person who gets really into it when I do something like that.

I suppose I built my share of model airplanes, but I can't remember that I was a flying fanatic.

I have sets, literally, of almost every single year of Strat-O-Matic baseball. That's how huge I was into it.

I was reading Agatha Christie as a little boy.