And if it all goes horribly wrong weve still got Argos. Dont you just — Bill Bailey

"But our countrys equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, hes got a shooter!"

"Three blokes go into a pub. Well, I say three; could be four or five. Could be nine or ten, doesnt matter. Could have been fifteen, twenty - fifty. Round it up. Hundred. Lets go mad, eh - two-fifty. Tell you what, double it up - five hundred. Thousand! Oh, Ive gone mad! Two thousand! Five thousand! (adopting auctioneer persona) Anyone? Five thousand, six thou, six thousand, ten thousand! Small town in Hertfordshire goes into a pub! Fifteen thousand blokes! Alright, lets go - population of Rotterdam. The Hague. Whole of Northern Holland. Mainland U.K. Lets go all the way to the top - Europe, alright? Whole of Europe goes - I say Europe. Could be Eurasia. Not the band, obviously, thats just two of them. Alright, continents - North America! Plus South America! Plus Antartica - thats just eight blokes in a weather station. Not a good example. Alright, make it a lot simpler, all the blokes on the planet go into the pub, right? And the first bloke goes up to the bar and he says "Ill get these in." What an idiot!"

"At parties, sometimes, for a laugh, I introduce myself - people say What do you do? and I say Im Aled Jones, its all gone wrong for me. No, look, Ive still got it! (drunken bawl) IM WALKING THROUGH THE AIIIIIIR, HAAAAAAHAHAHA. Ch. 19, 32:55"

"The national [Welsh] dish, cheese on toast, thats fantastic. "Thats no bother". "Were having a big ambassadorial reception." "All right, Ill get the grill on shall I? You want a bit of chutney on it?" "No, dont go mad Rhodri, its only Fiji." I think though that it has actually hampered Waless cultural diversity, because if you think of the other national dishes, like Ireland - Irish stew, bubbling away for hours on end, during which time poems are written, plays are written, fine linen is crafted, the whimsy is spun; Scotland, you have haggis, many many days it takes to pulverise the eyes, lips and all the toes, every [part] of the animal, the hooves, the shirt, the trousers, the abbatoir workers laundry, everything goes in there, and its bubbling away for days on end under the ground in the lung of a small burrowing animal, during which time electric light is invented, penicillin, a fine legal structure, those little things you lick, press down and they ping back up, Oh, I forgot about them, oh yeah; England, roast beef, roasting away for days on end, during which time poor, defenceless countries around the world are brought under the relentless yoke of imperial oppression; Wales, cheese on toast, "Right...oh, its ready. Shit." Ch. 9, 17:43"

"Aldous Huxley took the drug mescaline and then chronicled his experience in the book The Doors of Perception. Now, I dont actually think thats the first thing he wrote: he probably wrote my brain is melting ten thousand times, but it was the book that the critics latched on to."

"Grey and grey and grey and grey,"

"The only influences in [the painting The sick Child, Munch painted in his elderly home, remembering very accurate the last days of his dying little sister Sophie] The sick Child.. ..were the ones that come from my home.. ..my childhood and my home. Only someone who knew the conditions at home could possibly understand why there can be no conceivable chance of any other place having played a part – my home is to my art as a midwife is to her children.. ..few painters have ever experienced the full grief of their subject as I did in The sick child. It was not just I who was suffering; it was all my nearest and dearest as well."

"There was a man and he had eight sons. Apart from that, he was nothing more than a comma on the page of History. Its sad, but thats all you can say about some people."

"Im very sad that this seems to be the No. 1 question people want to discuss. I had nothing to do with the issue other than what the media created. I was innocently drawn into the whole controversy. So, after many years, Im glad at least now that I have been given the opportunity to explain to the public and fans my side of the story in my own words. At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Quran. The next day the newspaper headlines read, "Cat Says, Kill Rushdie." I was abhorred, but what could I do? I was a new Muslim. If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didnt mention Leviticus 24:16."

"Rhymer, brawler, and musician, Famed for his lunar expedition, And the unnumbered duels he fought, — And lover also, — by interposition! — Here lies Hercule Savinien De Cyrano de Bergerac, Who was everything, yet was naught. I cry you pardon, but I may not stay; See, the moon-ray that comes to call me hence! I would not bid you mourn less faithfully That good, brave Christian: I would only ask That when my body shall be cold in clay You wear those sable mourning weeds for two, And mourn awhile for me, in mourning him."

"We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction."

"—musics power Is little felt in sunlit hour; But hear its voice when hopes depart, Like swallows, flying from the heart On which the summers late decline Has set a sadness and a sign;. . . . . . How deeply will the spirit feel The lute, the songs sweet-voiced appeal; And how the heart drink in their sighs As echoes they from Paradise."