Comedians From Ireland

"Well, you know what they say about John, anyway?"

"People who get implants, it's so depressing, you know… People— I don't know. The route of that, you know, maybe they want more love or attention, or what it is, but they always go for the most obvious place, you know? Here... Well if you really want more attention, why not get them in your eyes? And then move you eyes down to where you nipples used to be, put you breasts up on your head, EVERYBODY will pay attention!"

"There's a guy, John Humphries, who does a lot of the interviews, and he sounds like he's been up since about midnight jogging on the spot to accuse people you've never heard of of lying. It's very aggressive right from the off. You turn it on and he goes: "DON'T LIE TO ME!! DON'T LIE TO ME! I'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 45 YEARS, WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM, A FUCKIN TURNIP?!" [...] "WHERE ARE THE BOMBS? WHERE ARE THEY?!?!....Get up so I can kick you again, you lying fuck!""

"That's why the have the programmes presented by 45 guys; "Hi I'm Ted, I'm Bob, I'm Ralph, I'm Dick, I'm Dale, I'm Nick, I'm Will", and they keep changing all the angles of the camera. "I'm over here, I'm at this desk, I'm standing here" and Wendy comes up from under the desk with the financial weather."

"Death before dishonour." I always used to wonder, Hey, exactly how much dishonour are we talking about here? 'Cause I could handle quite a lot. I would, for instance, fellate a Smurf before I picked death. I'd cook him a little Smurf omelette as I was doing it, you know, I'd be perfectly happy doing that. Seasoning it with thyme, you know, listening to his happy satisfied Smurf lip smacks. But every man thinks about Smurfs. They don't say it, but they do. That's why I'm here—to be honest. Just once, you know, what would it be like? Nobody needs to know, you go away for the weekend. Just once, to have the blue salty bulb lolling on your tongue... if I don't say it, nobody else will."

"And then I did a very male sort of reckoning, I did the calculation, I thought, ‘right. there’s three of you and there’s one of me’—I’m rubbish at maths, by the way—but, in record time, I worked out that it would take, at least, three of me to defend myself against a third of one of them even if he only attacked me with his ass. I’m not a fighter, you know, I’m a bleeder. The best I can hope for would be to drown somebody else with my own blood... if I don’t drown myself before."

"And they say that after people make love there's a kind of melancholia that descends; la petite mort, you know, the little death. Well, I'm here to tell you, after a romantic night in with yourself, there's a very acute sensation of failed suicide. And I think a lot of that, if you're men is because of the quality of the gear you've got to work with. I mean it's horrible looking. Like a deep sea fish that ate its own arse after about an hour. What's going on down there?! Do something nice, like a kittens head... or something and you could just tickle its chin until it got sick... it would be alright..."

"You're looking for a lump in a bag of lumps, that can take some time"

"Bagpipes covered in hair"

"This stage, if it hasn't already, probably will see a production of the Vagina Monologues. Which I cannot wait to see, because it sounds so fabulously fucking stupid. Everybody knows that if female genitalia could speak, it would sound exactly like Enya."

"You’re never going to go. Why would you go? It’s a disgusting place. It’s always wet even when it’s dry. There’s nothing there. Farmers aren’t really people, you know this. They’re just necessary, we need somebody to kill cows."

"You're supposed to eat the cows. They're great big lumbering stupid things - they'd be everywhere if we didn't eat them."

"What dya mean theres no fackin chips, I come ere on a plane, you cunt! I've got children ere, what am I spose to do with this fackin tomato fiasco."

"I'm kinda looking forward to being old, you know really really old, so that I can lean over in a restaurant with my son or daughter and say: "You know what I just did? I just pissed myself, you deal with it, then carry on telling me about you job or divorce or whatever the fuck it is, I’m not really listening to you to be honest, which one are you Siobhan or Simon? I can never tell.""

"You should stay away from your potential. I mean, that is something you should leave absolutely alone! You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you know: you always have much less than you think.[...] Leave it as the locked door within yourself and then at least, in your mind, the interior will always be palatial. Wonderful gleaming marble floors, brocaded drapes. Mullioned windows, covered in mullions, whatever they are. Flamingos serving drinks. Pianos shooting out canapés into the mouths of elegant men and women who are exchanging witticisms... "Oh yes, this reminds me of the time I was in BudaPESHT with Binky... We were trying to steal a goose from the casino, muahahaha..." But it wont be like that[...] You don't want to find out that the most you could possibly achieve, if you gave it your all, if you harvested every screed of energy within you, and devoted yourself to improving yourself, that all you would get to, would be maybe eating less cheesy snacks."

"I don't bother with drugs myself 'cause I'm at that age now; I don't need to. If I want a rush, I just get out of a chair when I don't expect it. Forget to give yourself a couple of days notice before you tie your shoes. Whoosh! What a rush!"

"It's a myth that men don't have their own version of PMT, of course they do - every woman knows this. It's a very simple experiment to conduct, all you've got to do is be with a man, wait until he starts doing something and then go up and talk to him. "WHAT?! What is it now?! I'm opening fish fingers can't you see?! You come in here, walking on the floor - breathing the air like it's yours - talking and talking and I'm doing something! Look they've fallen on the floor, are you happy?! Are you happy now?! Every time I try and do something for myself, you carbonize and then shit on my dreams... You're just like your your whole family! Why do I even dare to think I could dream I could imagine I could hope?!""

"99,9% of men are convinced that they have to live silently, with a bitter irony of the twist of fate, that means, nobody knows they're really a spy. And an amazing guitarist. Men give serious time and thought on "How would I deal with, if the rocket came down of that alley right now? Yeah, I'd handle that situation pretty well!" A spy who plays guitar at night! I basically think, you know, I'm what would have happened if James Dean had lived and discovered carbohydrates and orthopaedic shoes. You have to tell yourself this bullshit just to keep going! Cause you're constantly being reminded how redundant you are!"

"Or when people break up, they always use a bunch of lines on each other, you know, terrible rubbish lies, like "It’s not you, it’s me, it’s me." It’s NEVER you, it’s always them! You should level with these people! Tell them! "You know that strange sound you used to hear when you were going to sleep? That was me CHEWING the bed, out of sheer boredom! OOOOHH, How I HATE you, I hate you so much it gives me energy! I have to get up early in the morning to hate you because there isn’t time enough in the day. Please, GO AWAY!" Or that other BULLSHIT: "I need more space!" People never quantify exactly how much space they really need.. do they? But strangely enough, it always seems to be the exact same height, depth and breadth as you."

"You cannot over estimate how infantile men are about sex! Men are people that have sex BECAUSE they have a headache... or are on fire, or have been shot in the head, or whatever it is!"

"The cookery programmes that everybody watches are ridiculous, and so are the house programmes. You know you do not need a fish tank in the atrium you haven't got. And people now, feel under pressure to perform in their lives. Who has the time though? Who really has the time to skin the baby rabbit and dip it in the duck's tears and nail it to the garden roof and get to work with the blow torch so it has just the right texture to match the squash you made that morning using just your elbows. Who has the time? Nobody lives like this! We go around thinking that everybody else does, you know? Because what happens is you come in from work, and you think... maybe at most, if you're getting very adventurous, you will think "TONIGHT, we will eat something that has two colours in it!" BUT YOU DON'T! You end up sitting in front of the television, watching these programmes, eating bread from the bag, dipping it in anything runnier than bread, because there's isn't time for this horse shit!"

"All male arguments are very early '70s, Soviet-made, uni-directional trundling behemoths that say the same thing again and again and again: "I told you I would be late on Tuesday, I told you I would be late, I said it, I heard my own voice, I did say it... I told yoouuuu." Whereas women seem to have these amazing, slinky stealth bombers designed by Jaguar! With a lovely cream leather interior and infinite torque! That's why they can respond by saying "Yes, maybe, alright, but why is the fridge door open?" "I don't understand, I don't understand...""

"When you're born, you have a finger up your nose, the other hand on your dick, and you get taller. And that is really it."

"The most dangerous drink is gin. You have to be really, really careful with that. And you also have to be 45, female and sitting on the stairs. Because gin isn't really a drink, it's more a mascara thinner. "Nobody likes my shoes!" "I made... I made fifty... fucking vol-au-vents, and not one of you... not one of you... said 'Thank you.'" And my favourite: "Everybody, shut up. Shut up! This song is all about me.""

"It should not be an act of social disobedience to light a cigarette... unless you're actually a doctor working at an incubator."

"I asked a women I was with once, simple question, I asked her 'Have you ever eaten pheasant?' See, it's direct, isn't it?! It's enclosed, it contains everything that needs to be said! And she said a wonderful thing. She said "Erm..."—she thought about it—and she said "Er, not really." What does that mean? On any level? I mean, did you suck it and throw it away? Did someone drop it in your drink? What happened? Was it a speeding car, one lick? WHAT, WHAT?!?!"

"I don't want to make any huge generalisations about women, I'm not here to do that, it's — it's vulgar. But all I'll say is that they have no feelings. Because it's actually men, you'll find, who are the far more romantic. Men are the people you will hear say, "I've found somebody. She's amazing. If I don't get to be with this person, I'm fucked. I can't carry on, no, I mean it, she's totally transformed my life. I have a job, I have a flat, it means nothing. I can't stand it, I have to be with her. Because if I don't, I'm going to end up in some bedsit, I'll be alcoholic, I'll have itchy trousers. I can't — I can't walk the streets any more." That is how women feel about shoes."

"It turns you into two people: one of you's very nice, you'll go up to total strangers and say, "Come in, come in, sit down, for God's sake, have something. Have my bed." And then you'll go up to people you've known and loved all your life and say, "Get the fuck out of my house! Go on, get out! And leave a tip!""

"The candlelight dances off her mahogany-coloured skin as she un-robes, and she is smiling from the very middle of herself, and you look at them and you think "This is the one, this is it" and then—and then the cage comes down!"

"You hear people in restaurants competing with each other "I love you". "No, I love you". "Yeah, but I REALLY love you. I love pencils that you have sucked and thrown away ten years ago. I love your eyebrows and your ancestry and EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU! Just eat your food and let me love you, don't speak!" But what they don’t know, of course, at the time is that that dialogue is actually from a really bad science fiction film written by nature - really, what they're saying to one another is: "The race must continue, the race must continue! My vadudium is pointing at your phenungulator, the race must continue!""

"I don’t even see young people on the street anymore. I see youths. You know, how they’re described in police radio reports…. Slumped S-shapes in their hoods, beside their harrowed dogs and a bin full of burning grannies, all texting each other because they’ve given up on speech… plotting something terrible like how to make cider out of blood."

"Most heterosexual people in this country, and around the world, meet each other, and get together with one another when they’re totally, totally drunk. Smashed out of their minds they could not spell their own face. And they go home with that person! And you might spend months with that person, or a year, or you might have a family! This is what happens, this is how you meet. But you wouldn’t buy a toaster when you’re drunk, ‘cause that’s too important. It's got to be crispy in just the right way, hasn't it?"

"You’d be alone in the kitchen and twilight would be dwindling, and you could hear the far off cries of the other children playing nearby. You’d be alone in the kitchen because it was your special treat time, where the jelly would come out just for you, and your mother would appear at your side just as a vision of Laura Ashley print dress, smelling of magnolias and biscuits and put the jelly in front of you, and you would pull your chair in. Then the old fashioned bar of ice cream would come down, the one that had to be cut with a breadknife before the two sides were flanked with wafers. You would lift your little spoon up excitedly and winkle out that first divet of black jelly... AND THEN THE CAGE COMES DOWN! The cage with the Japanese fighting spiders inside, your mother strikes a match off her forearm and tells you to dance in the front room for money... You, you never forget that shit, I mean it never goes away."

"Men look at breasts the way women look at babies. 'Aw, isn't that lovely.'."

"Your nose hair... which is grey... is in my eye."

"The meaning of the word "gay" has changed. It used to mean all colourful and happy and homosexual, but now it's a word children use to describe something that's a little bit meh. "You're eating Weetabix? Oh, that's so gay.""

"When you say 'Bedtime, bedtime, bedtime!' that's not what the child hears. What the child hears is 'Lie down in the dark... for hours... and don't move... I'm locking the door now.'."

"Because their bones are growing, they can only sleep in certain positions, obviously. The crucifix and the swastika tend to be the most popular. Sometimes a combination of the two."

"Children are actually very sophisticated. They sleep in your bed for a reason. The child is born, it takes a look around, and thinks "Well this isn't quite what I'd hoped for. All these people are idiots... I wouldn't've have painted the house like this at all... But I've got to make the best of it. I've got to maximize my resources. So the key thing is to stop these people from having any more children.""

"Now, I meant to talk about something else earlier on, and I've forgotten what it was. I've remembered what it is again, but I've also forgotten. And that's really what adult life is like most of the time."

"That’s why adults are confused a lot of the time. Adults are terribly confused, messed up people. That’s because they forget, really, that they don’t have to pretend all the time. Really, the fact is that you’re not an adult at all - you’re just a tall child holding a beer, having conversations you don’t understand… "The Middle East? Yeah, I know it was really bad. I wouldn’t have done that. A hysterectomy? Yeah, very painful, the shoulder is a very painful area.""

"Children aren't like that, which is why they look so young, 'cause they always have a sense of style and purpose. When they're walking around, they have a very definite purpose, they're walking. And it's a great walk as well, it's not an adult's sort of bemused shuffle, it's that 'I'm going over here.' And you say 'Why are you going over there?' 'Because I have a harmonica.' 'What are you doing with the harmonica?' 'I'm going to put it in the toilet.' 'Why are you doing tha—' 'Enough questions, goodbye!'"

"Well I’m here, you know? Your house is a medley of disgusting smells, there’s nothing to eat, everybody’s wearing bathrobes, there’s no bar, I can’t fuck anybody. Why am I here?"

""What do women want?" As though it's really mysterious. As though it's a big deal. All that women want is what anybody wants. You know, friendship and companionship and respect and a certain amount of leadership with submission and a kind of cooperation at all times and pre-emptive empathy and you know, general telepathy. It's no big deal, is it? [...] Traditionally, women have been attracted to uniforms. So it's not difficult to know what women want. Fascists - that's really what they're all after!"

"Cool, calm, and unemotional. Protestant, for short. It's a fantastic religion, it makes absolutely no demands upon you at all, which is why it's not a great religion. All great religions are built on shame. You don't have any of that if you're Protestant. You go to the church, sing a few hymns, have a cup of tea, everybody goes home and has a wank."

"I am actually walking towards the biscuit, I didn't realise I was, but now I do, oh oh oh I am actually eating the biscuit...oh no, oh the shame, oh I don't know what's better, THE BISCUIT OR THE SHAME..oh oh the shame."

"And yet, people still turn to Jesus. You will notice though that the kind of people who turn to Jesus tend to be the sort of people who haven't done that well with everybody else."

"If you are going to have an afterlife, why not just have a physical afterlife? Just come back as a tentacle with a set of lips looking for huge lumps of chocolate to fuck, it'd be much more reasonable."

"I'm quite a compulsive person—I only worked this out recently—I'm compulsive, but I'm also very indecisive. I don't know what I want, but I know that I want it now."

"How small does your cock have to be, to make you walk into a car showroom and say: "Listen, I need something the size of a school, so people know I'm around.""