Ive had such disgusting things said to me over 37 years and now, to st — Eddie Izzard

"In my first year I was taught about the slide rule. They said, "The slide rule is important. Without it you can do nothing. The slide rule is the modern weapon of efficiency. With the slide rule you can get from here to the stars. Buy it, use it – your slide rule!" Within one year it was, "Burn the slide rule. The calculator can add up with none of this fucking sliding the shit around and working out where that bit in the middle goes. Smash it over your head."

"Agatha Christie? We go back years, me and Ag. Shes a … shes just a … shes dead, isnt she?"

"I am a lesbian trapped in a mans body."

"And were going, "Oh, Captain Clever! Whoa-ho-ho! Rattle it, and if it doesnt go off, it cant be a bomb!"

"[God, who was James Mason, to Noah] "Noah, stop what youre doing and build me an ark!" [Noah, who was Sean Connery] "Im working on a speed boat at the moment. Much more exciting. Itll really kick ass, give great photographs for the people in Bible."

"Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion – theyre two words which are both … different. In spelling."

"Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud To rise before me — Rise, oh, ever rise; Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God."

"We all lament the sad decease of the heroic worker who occupied the post until last week. As you know, his services to the cause were considerable. He organised the great dynamite coup of Brighton which, under happier circumstances, ought to have killed everybody on the pier. As you also know, his death was as self-denying as his life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic mixture of chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which substance he regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow."

"Me, I just dont care about proprietary software. Its not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesnt matter. I think that Open Source can do better, and Im willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Source, but its not a crusade – its just a superior way of working together and generating code."

"Present-day computers are designed primarily to solve preformulated problems or to process data according to predetermined procedures. The course of the computation may be conditional upon results obtained during the computation, but all the alternatives must be foreseen in advance. … The requirement for preformulation or predetermination is sometimes no great disadvantage. It is often said that programming for a computing machine forces one to think clearly, that it disciplines the thought process. If the user can think his problem through in advance, symbiotic association with a computing machine is not necessary."

"Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi’ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin."

"We must eliminate that [potential nuclear] threat now before it is too late. But that isnt just a future threat. Saddams existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America today, tomorrow. … [He] is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East. He could make these weapons available to many terrorist groups, third parties, which have contact with his government. Those groups, in turn, could bring those weapons into the United States and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly."