Comedians From England

"It seems to me that if God had intended for you to cover your face then, in His wisdom, He would have provided you with a flap of skin for the purpose."

"I don't respect your beliefs and I don't care if you're offended."

"I don't want to be too hard on Islam here, for two reasons: firstly because I don't want to be murdered by some hysterical, self-righteous, carpet-chewing, book-burning muppet with shit for brains. And secondly, I do think we need to make allowances for Islam, because we have to remember Islam is quite a young religion. So, maybe right now it's just going through a difficult age, a little headstrong, full of itself, thinks it knows all the answers, but I'm sure it'll learn. I think years from now, a lot of intelligent Muslims will be looking back on all this Medievalism and Jihad nonsense with embarrassment and shame, like the Germans do with the Nazis, and maybe then we can all have a good laugh about it, but in the mean time I think that any religion that demands earthly vengeance and retribution for any reason is not really a religion at all, but an illness and should be treated as such."

"I oppose Islam, for the simple reason that Islam opposes me and everything I believe in. I don't care how Muslims feel about that. I don't care how anyone feels about it, nor should I be required to. In my opinion, Islam's disgusting treatment of women is a crime against humanity, nothing less. It's a thousand percent wrong, there's no grey area, it's unconscionable and unforgivable, and it's poisoning the whole world. It's not different or relative, it's backward and uncivilised. There's no excuse for it, and no excuse for defending it."

"It's often said of Jesus that he could have saved himself, but he chose not to. And if you read the Gospels it's clear that he could have talked himself out of that crucifixion quite easily, but he was just too stubborn. The Romans didn't really want to kill him at all, but in the end they went along with it because he was being such a prick about it. The truth is he couldn't wait to get up on that cross. In fact, I think Christianity only exists because Jesus Christ just happened to be a masochist. I think he took one look at the hammer and nails and he couldn't believe his luck. He thought, "Well, in three days I'll be in Heaven, but until then I'm going to enjoy myself.""

"You should see me dance the Polka, You should see me cover the ground, You should see my coat-tails flying, As I jump my partner round; When the band commences playing, My feet begin to go, For a rollicking romping Polka Is the jolliest fun I know."

"I left the room with silent dignity, but caught my foot in the mat."

"I was sorry to see the News of the World go down, I think it was a great campaigning newspaper. Who can forget the News of the Worlds high profile campaign against child sex offenders which led to News of the World readers burning down the home of a paediatrician, throwing rocks at a pedalo, stamping on a centipede."

"Remember, all that's required for Jeremy Clarkson to triumph is that Richard Hammond do nothing."

"Hang on a minute, mate. Who's the sole arbiter of taste in stand-up comedy? Who's the self-appointed moral judge of right and wrong in stand-up comedy? It's me, I am! It's been me for about 17 years now"

"The twisting of the idea of 'political correctness' into a soft, one-size-fits-all punchbag for the right-wing media and your nan is a personal bugbear of mine [...] . In 2008, Edward Stourton published It's a PC World, which explained everything I ever wanted to say on the subject far more eloquently than I ever could have, and used actual statistical facts to back it up. Because no one can imagine a remotely pro-political correctness book, Stourton's book was, tellingly, misfiled by bookshops in the humour section, alongside Richard Littlejohn's Hell in a Handcart, those crappy politically correct fairy tales books and Al Murray's Pub Landlord annuals. Pundits on the Right like to imagine we live in a PC dictatorship, but the fact remains that in a high-street bookshop it is assumed that any book with PC in the title must be a hilarious attack on PC, rather than a book in its defence, because the only time you ever see PC mentioned is when people are complaining about PC. For money. And usually on the very publicly funded radio stations that these dicks believe are involved in a politically correct conspiracy to silence them."

"And John took me by the elbow and he led me, kind of politely, away from the group, and he said to me, "Clearly Judas -- clearly -- Jesus is clearly setting out to fulfil the prophecy. Clearly." Now, John was the sort of person who would use the word 'clearly' repeatedly in a sentence as if that relieved him of the responsibility of actually making what it was he was saying clear. You probably know someone like that."

"David Cameron never mentions it, but the Conservative Party won a by-election in Birmingham, and they sent out little kids with leaflets that said, "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour." And if political correctness has achieved one thing, it's to make the Conservative Party cloak its inherent racism behind more creative language.""

"It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say "political correctness gone mad" are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he drove me around saying, "this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in," right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and international politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I'm sick, I'm really sick-- 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men." You're a bunch of idiots."

"We've all seen 'Jewing it up' performances. They are about as miserable to watch as as 'camping it up' performances when representing gays."

"I was thinking in the cab on the way here that when I did press for the original production it felt like this was what I’ve always dreamt of — to be talking about myself, and about a play that I’ve written, and to be photographed. It was what I wanted. Now it’s just part of the job."

"Back in my 20s, I was playing poker to avoid living. I wasn’t very satisfied with life. I used to play in a big game in Archway. And we’d play as much as we possibly could and for as much money as we had, and that went on for a couple of years."

"No one ever wanted to see it as anything other than a boring play about a middle-aged man having a mid-life crisis. I think it’s about rather more than that - or maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s exactly what it is about."

"The make-up sat on the surface of my skin like scrambled egg."

"Are you sitting comfortably? Then get up. This is no time for sloth."

"The plans of mice, men and Maureen gang aft a cock-up."

"She taught us Hygiene. And you know what that meant: s-x, pr-cr-ation and p-r--ds."

"I'm a games player by nature. Don't get me wrong. Nothing that involves movement. Like leaving my chair."

"The day war broke out, my Missus said to me – she looked at me and she said, "What good are you?""

""Well," she said, "All the young fellas'll be getting called up and you'll have to go back to work!" Ooh – she's got a cruel tongue!"

"She said,"What are you supposed to do?" I said, "I'm supposed to stop Hitler's army landing." She said, "What! – you?" I said, "No – there's Charlie Evans, Dick Roberts...I said, "There's seven or eight of us, altogether." I said, "We're in a group." I said, "We're on guard in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet." She said, "What's the good of being in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet?" She said, "I suppose that was your idea!" I said, "Aye, and that Charlie Evans wants to claim it as his!""

"She said, "Do you know this Hitler? Have you ever met him?" I said, "Do I – of course I don't!" She said, "Well how are you going to know which is him if they do land?" I said, "Well, I've got a tongue in my head, haven't I?""

"Woman: Do come along quick, there's a house on fire. Fire Chief: A house on fire? Just a moment, lady – what's the address? Woman: Grimshaw Street. Fire Chief: Grimshaw Street – Grimshaw … now wait a minute, I know it as well as can be, and I just can't place it. Woman: Oh come along, it's only just round... Fire Chief: No, no, no – don't tell me, let me try and think of it for myself. Grimshaw St–... oh, isn't that annoying, I could walk straight to it, and I can't think of it."

"He said "I'll punch your head!" I said "Whose?" He said "Yours!" I said "Mine?" He said "Yes!" I said "Oh?" He said "Want a fight?" I said "Who?" He said "You!" I said "Me?" He said "Yes!" I said "No!" So we then came to words, he said "You're a cad!" I said "Cad?" He said "Yes!" I said "Who?" He said "Who?" I said "Yes." He said "You!" I said "Oh!" So of course then I knew."

"He had the kind of handshake that ought never to be used except as a tourniquet."

"What is a harp but an over-sized cheese-slicer with cultural pretensions?"

"A counter tenor is anyone who can count to ten."

"Smetana certainly knew which side his bride was bartered."

"I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician."

"Money can't buy poverty."

"When I quoted Bulwer Lytton's "The pen is mightier than the sword" to Marty Feldman he added reflectively, "Yes, and considerably easier to write with.""

"Hookers have to deliver on their promise... unlike politicians."

"I feel about Keaton the way an organist thinks of Bach."

"I carry Keaton's photo around with me to remind me what happened to him. If the Hollywood system can destroy him it can destroy me."

"Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act."

"Sex is two plus two making five, rather than four. Sex is the X ingredient that you can't define, and it's that X ingredient between two people that make both a man and a woman good in bed. It's all relative. There are no rules."

"I was about five and a half or six when I converted [to vegetarianism] … I was brought up the first five years of my life in London, in the working-class part of the city, where the only animals that a child is liable to see are domestic animals, or cats, or pigeons, or horses, none of which one eats. Then I was evacuated onto a farm when the war came, and billeted with this family of farmers, and I got very friendly with a rabbit—George, the rabbit. Then one day, George the rabbit was George the lunch. For a farming family there was nothing obscene about that. They kill animals; they serve them up at table and say, "Hey, yes, that's the animal you were playing with yesterday!"—which is not abnormal. It was obscene to me as a child."

"Things get shaped straight and thin for reasons of aerodynamics. Missiles and skyscrapers are shaped the way they are on the soundest principles of engineering, not as monuments to the dick. In fact, so is the dick. The dick is shaped like a dick because that is the most efficient shape for a dick to be. That's why it's dick shaped. I mean a dick shaped like a table would cause all sorts of practical spatial problems."

"Leave a message, don't leave a message. live, die, it's all the same dream."

"The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth."

"Lies are as important as truth, for without lies, the truth is worthless."

"No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi."

"The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value."

"I bought myself a Wonderbra For fourteen ninety nine, It looked so good on the model girl's chest, And I hoped it would on mine, I took it from the packaging And when I tried it on, The Wonderbra restored to me All I believed had gone."

"I am a mighty Garage, On the corner of the Square, And it is all my pleasure, To provide a quick repair, Or I can do your service, In the blinking of an eye, I wouldn't say it's thorough, But it'll get you by."