“All women go through a black lace drawers time.” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
“I like the desert; it’s cleaner.”
-T.E. Lawrence
There’s a lot of love for Churchill around here so I’ll add one of my favorite exchanges.
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.”
Winston Churchill’s reply: “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”
And my favorite British Parliment slam from John Wilkes to the Earl of Sandwich:
“I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox.”
“That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.”
“We’re not just gonna shoot the bastards. We’re gonna tear out their living guts, and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re gonna murder those bastards by the bushel!”
-George Patton, from the movie “Patton”
I remember it because it’s a cool quote and because a metal band sampled it at the beginning of a particularly brutal song.
“If a guy’s close to you, you can’t slight him. You can’t slight that guy. A real grievance can be resolved; differences can be resolved. But an imaginary hurt, a slight - that motherfucker gonna hate you 'til the day he dies.”
– Jack Nicholson playing Jimmy Hoffa
Close-ish. This is how I remember it:
It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.
Here’s a few of mine, all from the Goon Show:
Needle noddle noo, to name but a few.
You silly twisted boy, you.
I can’t understand it, we live in a bungalow!
Is he bound?
Of his health I know not, sir.
Don’t do that, Eccles, it’s not nice.
Is the rocket ready?
Not quite, we still need to add another layer of brown paper and string. You can’t be too careful, you know!
Julius Caesar ruled Britain with an iron hand. Then with a wooden foot. Finally with a piece of string.
Has it gone dark? They, they couldn’t have! They have! The sun! Help! They’ve put out the sun! Hellllllp!
I can’t open the door, Min, I’ve lost my key out here in the dark and I can’t find it.
Well come inside in the light and have a look for it.
Are you inferring that anyone who plays a brass band instrument is immune from Lurgi?
Yes.
Give me an A, will you?
The government is establishing Yack-a-bool centers in Blackpool.
This man is the inventor of the brown telephone.
What? Oddy boddy, what about Edison Bell?
Edison Bell, sir, invented the black telephone.
That was the Goon Show, a BBC recorded program featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan, with Ray Ellington and his Quartet, and Max Geldray, orchestra conducted by Wally Stott, script by Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan. Directed by Peter Eaton.
Roddy
Nitpick: “sun of York.”
All animals are equal, but some are more equal then others.
George Orwell
When the going gets tough, the tough go and have a little cry in the corner.
Rimmer. Red Dwarf.
Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
Ace. Red Dwarf.
This sounds like a 12 change of underwear trip!
Cat. Red Dwarf.
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
Winston Churchill
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
Never hold discussions with the monkey while the organ grinder is in the room.
Winston Churchill
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
Get real man, most eunuchs have got more balls then you.
Lister. Red Dwarf.
Well I’ll be damned!
I stand corrected !
And thats just a little bit of romance removed from my soul.
Apologies. If it helps I think Winston Churchill wrote some sort of eulogy.
Oh and Hamlet’s first long speech, “What a piece of work is man …”
And “Come live with me and be my love…”
For a man who died at Gallipoli? I suppose that was the least he could have done . . .
No- he didn’t die at Gallipoli. He died before the invasion. (off the top of my head- a few days before).
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it will seem like an hour. Sit with a pretty woman for an hour, it will seem like a minute. THAT’S relativity”.
-Albert Einstein
You were probably thinking of Wilfred Owen.
Anyway, that’s reminded me of another bit of WW1 poetry:
God heard the embattled nations sing and shout:
“Gott strafe England”, “God save the King”,
“God this”, “God that” and “God the other thing”;
“My God”, said God, “I’ve got my work cut out.”
J. C. Squire
“I have never presumed to think that God is on our side; I want, rather, for us to be on God’s side.” - Lincoln
What’s this from?
“Hubert Humphrey is a gutless, treacherous, ward-healer who ought to be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current. Any political party that can’t cough up anything better than that worthless old hack deserves every beating it gets.”
Hunter S. Thompson – Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972
Another quote from Virgil’s *Aeneid *that I cannot pry out of my brain (I will remember this until the day I’m in a nursing home, I swear):
*Eadem me ad fata vocasses:
Idem ambas ferro dolor atque eadem hora tulisset. *
Thanks to our Latin teacher. She made us recite the passage starting with those two lines in the original over and over, using an n+1 scheme. No wonder I’ll never be able to forget them, and it’s been over 15 years.
I’ve forgotten almost all my Latin except for those two lines.
I don’t remember the title; it was an old short in a collection of sci-fi vampire stories named Tomorrow Sucks, which admittedly did spoil the twist ending a bit.