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• 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."
  • eddieizzard.com, Biography: Ch. 5

Live At The Ambassadors (1993)

• Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion – they're two words which are both … different. In spelling.

• Agatha Christie? We go back years, me and Ag. She's a … she's just a … she's dead, isn't she?

• She said, "Spell 'ant'", and I wrote out the entire alphabet. She said, "That doesn't spell 'ant'", and I said, "It's in there somewhere! There's the 'A', there's the 'N', there's the 'T' – the rest are silent!"

• And we're going "Oh, Captain Clever! Whoahoho! Rattle it and if it doesn't go off, it can't be a bomb!"

Unrepeatable (1994)

• Then they'd beam down to an oval of gravel with 6 big rocks in the back … every week. "Oh Captain, strong déjà-vu here."
  • On Star Trek

• I am two lesbians in a man's body.

• Cats have a scam going – you buy the food, they eat the food, they go away; that’s the deal.

• You have no control over your cat! You can’t say to your cat, “Cat, heel! Stay! Wait! Lie down! Roll over!” ‘Cause the cat’s just gonna be sitting there going, “Interesting words… Have you finished?” While you’re shouting all this to your cat, your dog’s next to you, going… [mimes obeying all commands] “What the hell are you doing? I’m talking to the cat!” “Oh, I’m sorry!”

• And cats leap up walls! Six foot walls, they just go… "Fwang" [mimes cat jumping] Lands perfectly, and turn… turn… and back flip and forward flip, and dismount! They always land perfectly, they never do that sort of wobbly-gymnast … [mimes wobbling] You never see cats on a wall having a problem, do you? You never see a cat going, [mimes tentative walk] “Fucking ‘ell..! I’m not sure about this…” and a cat on the ground, going, “Easy, Ginger! I'll walk you down!”

Definite Article (1996)

• "My name is Mrs. Smith, I’ve made apples out of bread and dripping, a bit of green paint, and corrugated iron."

  "No, these are horrible apples, Mrs. Smith. Go away, Mrs. Smith! Go away until your daughter has a baby."

  "Shag, daughter, shag! It’s a marketing idea, shag for babies! (mimes running back) My daughter’s had a baby, I’m Granny Smith now!"

  "Come in, Granny Smith! You wonderful idea, you! Come in with your shiny apples."

• Pears can just fuck off too. 'Cause they're gorgeous little beasts, but they're ripe for half an hour, and you're never there. They're like a rock or they're mush. In the supermarket, people banging in nails. "I'll just put these shelves up, mate, then you can have the pear." … So you think, "I'll take them home and they'll ripen up." But you put them in the bowl at home, and they sit there, going, "No! No! Don't ripen yet, don't ripen yet. Wait til he goes out the room! Ripen! Now now now!"

• What? … The Carthaginians are attacking? God, I knew they'd do that. What? … They are attacking over the Alps? Damn, I knew they'd do that. What? … They're coming on Elephants? … Where'd they get the Elephants? There aren't any Elephants in Europe. This I got to see … are you sure? … It's not just a typo mistake? Perhaps the Carthaginians are attacking over the Alps and they are in their element? Kind of upbeat, you know. They're coming on fucking elephants, huh.

• If you've never seen an Elephant ski, then you've never been on acid.

• Day One: Rang bell, cat fucked off. (Oh dear)
  Day Two: Rang bell, cat went and answered door.
  Day Three: Rang bell, cat said he had eaten earlier. (cheeky bugger)
  Day Four: Went to ring bell, but cat had stolen batteries.
  Final Day, Day Five: Went and rang bell with new batteries, but cat put his paw on bell so it only made a thunk noise. Then cat rang his own bell.
  I ate food.
  • On Pavlov's cats

Glorious (1997)

• Beekeepers, yes… They've gotta want to be – "I want to be a beekeeper! I wanna keep bees! Don't wanna let them get away; I wanna keep them! They have too much freedom … I want bees on elastic, so when they get pollen, they come back here! My father was a beekeeper before me, his father was a beekeeper before him; I wanna walk in their footsteps … and their footsteps were like this: [running wildly from imaginary bees] I'M COVERED IN BEES!!

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

• So then God created the world and on the first day he created light and air and fish and jam and soup and potatoes and haircuts and arguments and small things and rabbits and people with noses and jam, more jam, perhaps, and, er, and soot and flies and tobogganing and showers and toasters and grandmothers and Belgium. And the second day he created fire and water and eggnog and radiators and lights and Burma and things that go "urh" and... and Colonel Gaddafi and Arthur Negus. On the third day he probably got lists and said,"I can't remember what I've invented now. I've just been ad-libbing so far."

• "Give us cash! I steal from the rich and give to the poor! I’m trying to be a myth; give us cash!"
  "No, I’m not gonna give you cash."
  "Go on, I steal from the rich. Are you rich?"
  "No, I’m… comfortable."
  "That’s no good, I can't steal from the fairly well off and give to the moderately impoverished! That’s not gonna swing, is it?"
  • On Robin Hood

• I don't have techno-fear, I have techno-JOY! I love technology! I love to get a new machine. Every time I get a new machine, I think, 'This is the one! I won't have to work again; I've got THIS thing!' And if you have techno-joy, you get the instructions, you unwrap it, and you throw the instructions out the window! [mimes doing so] Forget them! Fuck 'em! [mimes turning on a computer] On. [mimes typing] I must know how this works, I've used machines before!

Dress to Kill (1998)

• There's no Church of England fundamentalism. We can't have Church of England fundamentalism. You know, like they have Islamic fundamentalism. Jihad!... Aha... Church of England fundamentalism is impossible because you can't have: "You must have tea and cake with the vicar... or you die!"

• Two languages in one head? No one can live at that speed! Good Lord, man, you're asking the impossible! "But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana!" Well... yes, but they're cheating! Everyone knows that marijuana is... a drug enhancement that helps you on track and field to come last... in a team of eight million... eight million other runners who are all... dead.

• But in Britain we don't win many gold medals at the Olympics, because we've chosen not to. It's a political statement, 'cause we hate our national anthem. Because it's "God Save the Queen," you see. God save the queen. Now the queen lives in a very big house with barbed wire outside and people with guns in front of that. That's one saved fucking queen, I tell you.

• Then I had to chat up girls. I'd never used my voice to do that. When your voice is breaking, it's hard. [silkily] "Why, Susan, I really... [squeakily]...kind of fancy you. I saw you in the... [squeaks]...playground." I had to chat up girls. I'd only tagged them before. I didn't have the power to say "Susan, I saw you in class today, as the sun shone with a brilliant light that caught your hair. It was haloed. You turned. Your eyes flashed fire into my soul. I immediately read the words of Dostoyevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, I-i-i-i-i fancy you."

Circle (2000)

• Yes, and the Crusades were, "We kill you in the name of Jesus!"

  "Wait, we have Jesus too! He's a prophet in our religion! We kill you in the name of Jesus!"

  "Do you? Well, we kill you for your dark skin, for Jesus was a white man from Oxford!"

  "No, he wasn't! He was from Judea! Dark-skinned man, such as we!"

  "... Really? Look, we've come all this way. Would you mind awfully if we hacked you to bits? Just for the press back home."

• Pope Pius XII was meant to go and castigate Hitler for being a [air quotes] "Genocidal Fuckhead [pause; air quotes again] with bunny rabbit ears". But he didn't, he wimped out, and since then History has renamed Pius XII as "Pope Gutless Bastard I."

• There's 200,000 gods in Hinduism... and they've got gods like Shiva, the God of Creation and Destruction. Which is a good god to be, 'cause you can go *WHOOM* [creates thing] "What do you think? Do you like that? You don't like that?" *WHOOM* [destroys thing] If you're just the God of Creation, you're going *WHOOM* "Do you like that? You don't? All right, I'll put it in the garage... shit, I haven't got a garage! *WHOOM* [creates garage].

• Make-up's just crazy anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them... until uhh... well, until you killed them all."

• The major five religions being Christianity, Judaism, Islam, RCA, Sony, Buddhism and Hinduism. Because apart from the two silly ones, they've all got Jesus in them. I'm not telling you about the two silly ones. ("RCA, they're in the Middle East, aren't they?") 'Cause if you can't work out what they are, you're probably the person in the plane who watches when they do the belt bit.

Sexie (2003)

• So... Uh... I'd better explain the tits. Umm... didn't have those at school. Wanted to, but not in the school curriculum... even though I asked.

• It didn't seem to work, cause no matter how much make up I wore, people just kept saying "Yes, sir! Would you like tea with that, sir?"
  "Yes, I would like tea. Why don't you put it on my breasts?"
  "Certainly. Tea for this man's breasts! Anything else, sir?"

• So, I thought, its not working. So I threw my breasts out of the window of my Lamborghini, in my mind... No, I threw the breasts out of the window of my Ford Fiesta, in my mind. Actually, I threw them out over the handlebars of my bicycle [mouthing the words] in my mind. And they hit a small child, who ran. "Mum, Mum, Mum... I've been attacked by... jellyfish!"

• So, what's my point? And racist people, interestingly, are never as polite as smokers. Have you noticed that? Smokers always go, "Do you mind if I smoke? Oh, you do? Okay, I'll go outside and have a cigarette." Racist people never go, "Do you mind if I'm racist? Oh, I'll go outside... fucking blue people, eh? Coming here, steal our hamsters..."

• Homo Sapiens wouldn't have made it, and everything would be different! Television would be... you know, Book of the Month club on television would be:
  Neanderthal presenter: "And now we have the professor... uh... whaddayou think of this book?"
  Neanderthal professor: "Wha...?"
  Presenter: "What do you think of this book, in a critical way?"
  Professor: "It's all right..."
  Presenter:"There you have it. It's all right!"
  • On the consequences if Neanderthals had not become extinct