Verbatim

"I find Jewish things very funny. Apart from the Holocaust."

- KJW

The deafening sound of silence

"You're not saying anything. That speaks volumes."

Overheard on flight EZY8853

• "I started reading A Brief History of Time, but he lost me when it got to the sciencey bit."

• "If you want to watch our short programmes, just look at the screens overhead."

• "The weather [in Sharm el Sheikh] is... pretty much as you see it out the window."

The last, at least, was ironically. Sorry - purposefully ironic.

Young Republiguns

Best of PJ O'Rourke (before he became an old republicun'):

On the bourgeois condition

When the gods would form an ass,
First they make him middle-class,
Give him comic cares and woes,
And let his wife pick out his clothes.

On education

Education is not just a matter of learning things. There's a difference between learning and knowledge. It's the difference between Christy Turlington's phone number and Christy Turlington.

On arguing with the women in your life

If you can't prevail over an aged woman whose every weakness and foible you know and with whom you have been contending your entire life, how do you expect to do against a team from out of town?

On war

I know why most societies don't allow women in combat. Combat is just a battle to the death. You don't want it to turn into something really ugly like a marriage.

On writing careers

There is one thing worse than writing (I mean, other than getting a real job or cancer) - promoting what you've written.

On nascent writing careers

Good reporters don't ask any [interview] questions because they are too busy getting drunk with the author. The only decent questions come from the young reporters, who ask "Is writing really better than getting a real job or cancer?"

On music

Rock lyrics don't give rock musicians adequate scope for full intellectual expression because so few words rhyme with boogie.

On anatomy

For a purely untrustworthy human organ, the memory is right in there with the penis.

On fashion

Miniskirts caused feminism.

NB This all from one chapter - 'Essays, Prefaces, Speeches, Reviews and Things Jotted on Napkins' - of Age And Guile (beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut)

NB'issimi Age And Guile (PB edition) was a loving and generous leaving present from my fellow Amnesiac... who naturally kept the hardback copy for himself.

Finally, conclusive proof that an English girl will do anything (by which I mean, shave her arse) if she's had enough to drink

(Thanks to RN)

Getting vocal

Her: "When did you become such an outspoken arse?"

Me: "When I learned to talk."

My bird, on theatregoers

"Why do people go to the theatre? Is it so they can eat dinner at 5:30?"

IDentikit

My girlfriend................................... .....My... oh.

My (American) girlfriend, on The Ashes

"So, which teams are playing today?"

Sartorial summery

'Let me tell you about linen,' she said. 'After a certain age it makes a man look ten years younger. Up until that age, it makes him look ten years older.'

- Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

Myths & Legends

My girlfriend and I are going to a 'Myths & Legends' fancy dress party on Saturday night.

I'm going as the female orgasm.

She's going as a 12" schlong.

Flatteries, flatteries...

"I actually like that you're not a particularly nice person."

- Herself

Truth or dare?

"Think how much writing you'd get done if you didn't read so much."

- My significant other.

Quote of the day

"You only ever hear about the mad writers, not about the people who went mad trying to write."

- My bird.