"Despite the awfulness of what was happening, the backdrop was a scene of beauty: a clear sky, a bright moon, clearly visible stars, flat undisturbed water, and an immense liner blazing with pinholes of light."

"Wallace Hartley: “I’ve always felt that, when men are called to face death suddenly, music is are more effective in cheering them on than all the firearms in creation.”"

"For those out on the water it provided a bizarre soundtrack to a sight that so many would only be able to describe as “like watching a moving picture.”"

"When everything on the ship was being turned upside down, the music remained the same. In the midst of mind-jarring abnormality, it was the one thing that retained its familiarity."

"Not only had they behaved dutifully and without apparent concern for their own safety, but they also offered the hope that not all of the younger male generation were venial, lazy, proud, irreligious, inconsiderate, self-indulgent, weak-willed, and timorous."

"There is not in history a more splendid and inspiring example of self-control, of self-sacrifice, of courage and of manliness."

"The image of the lighted ship sliding under the waves, while the band carried on regardless, captured the public’s imagination."

"In the whole history of the sea, there is little to equal the wonderful behavior of these humble players."

"The band played marching from deck to deck, and as the ship went under I could still hear the music."

"By the twentieth of April, the story was widely accepted and was viewed as one of the most heartening acts of bravery in the whole tragedy."

"As the screams in the water multiplied, another sound was heard, strong and clear at first, then fainter in the distance. It was the melody of the hymn “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” played by the string orchestra in the dining saloon."

"A French politician without a mistress is like a sheriff without a gun—people think he has no firepower."

"The Communists were promising retirement for all state employees at age 35. The Socialists were proposing absolutely nothing because they couldn't elect a leader who would propose things. The centre-right parties (of which there were about ten) were all promising employers that they would no longer have to pay workers and would be exempt from prosecution for any industrial pollution that killed fewer than 100,000 people. The far right was proposing, less realistically, to have immigrants barbecued in every place du marché on Friday nights. And in a similar vein, the rural party promised to change the law on endangered species so that hunters could now shoot dodos, unicorns, mermaids and American tourists."

"Sex is wonderful, but it's like champagne. If you're forced to have four glasses at every meal you start to fantasize about a glass of water."

"[After some time] I found that I understood a lot more about Parisians' attitude to work. Workdays became a mild irritant inserted between weekends. Friday afternoons were little more than a short period after lunch during which you checked the internet for traffic jams on the routes out of town."

"Red lights are like queues. They are for people who have time to waste."

"This was Marianne, the revolutionary heroine, the French equivalent of Uncle Sam. This being France, instead of a bearded old uncle who looks as if he should be advertising fried chicken, they have a seminaked woman."

"My experience of the original Edison phonograph goes back to the period when it was first introduced into this country. In fact, I have good reason to believe that I was among the very first persons in London to make a vocal record, though I never received a copy of it, and if I did it got lost long ago. It must have been in 1881 or 1882, and the place where the deed was done was on the first floor of a shop in Hatton Garden, where I had been invited to listen to the wonderful new invention. To begin with, I heard pieces both in song and speech produced by the friction of a needle against a revolving cylinder, or spool, fixed in what looked like a musical box. It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."

"Brian has compared presenting The World at One to high diving into an empty pool, and hoping it will be filled before you reach the bottom."

"He could always be relied on to find the right word at the right moment... and he was loved by the audience"

"Brian had a special relationship with the audience — he broke through in a way few others do. They had come to trust him as a voice of calm — whether reporting on momentous events of history, or the grand state events. For more than 30 years, it was that quality above all others that distinguished Brian as one of the BBC's brightest and best."

"He saw more than his share of history unfold."

"I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out, and I counted them all back. Their pilots were unhurt, cheerful and jubilant, giving thumbs up signs."

"Extremely dogged and factual and intelligent reporter who saw things in front of him and described them graphically … He was one of those voices you could rely on... a journalist who was seeking the truth."

"A thunderous boo is one thousand times stronger, nobler, and more powerful than a standing ovation. Admiration corrupts."

"I am, and have always been, a pornographic angel."

"The keyhole is my lens as a writer."

"To save the audience we must fill the stage with murderers, adulterers and madmen; in short, we must fire a salvo of monsters at them. They are our monster which we will temporarily free ourselves from only to face another day."

"Only the prophets see the obvious."

"Adulthood does not exist. Man is an eternal child."

"Unanimity is always stupid."

"Sex education should only be taught by veterinarians."

"Love is impossible without bite marks."

"It's very hard not to be a scoundrel nowadays. Everywhere there are pressures that work towards our personal and collective debasement."

"I only believe in those who can still blush."

"Human beings are blind to their own faults. In the movies, villains never proclaim that they are villains. Nor do idiots say that they are idiots. Our faults lie within us, active and fierce, but unconfessed. I've never seen a man walk downstage and announce, his head held high, "Ladies and gentleman, I'm a scumbag!""

"Love is eternal. If it ends, it wasn't love."

"Man finds happiness only in the superfluous. Under communism, he has only the essentials. How abominable and ridiculous!"

"Husbands shouldn't be the last to know. Husbands should never know!"

"To love is to be faithful to those who cheat on us."

"I envy stupidity, stupidity is eternal."

"Every shy person is a potential sex offender."

"If life turns her back on you, grab her ass."

"Money buys everything, even true love."

"The audience will only truly respect you when they have no idea what is going on."

"I won't stand for censorship, not even from Jesus Christ."

"Any individual is greater than the Milky Way."

"To be the best in the world in anything, even 'long distance spitting', implies a grave, heavy and suffocating responsibility."

"All women like a beating."