Peter Cook quotes:

Playing rugby at school I once fell on a loose ball and, through ignorance and fear, held on despite a fierce pummelling. After that it took me months to convince my team-mates I was a coward.

I would much prefer to be a judge than a coal miner because of the absence of falling coal.

The garden of Eden was a boggy swamp just south of Croydon. You can see it over there.

The thing that makes you know that Vernon Ward is a good painter is if you look at his ducks, you can see the eyes follow you around the room.

I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly

I am blind -- but I am able to read thanks to a wonderful new system known as 'broil' . . . I'm sorry, I'll just feel that again.

I went to the University of Life and was chucked out.

Job was what you'd technically describe as a loony.

One of the ways to avoid being beaten by the system is to laugh at it.

I am very interested in the Universe - I am specialising in the Universe and all that surrounds it.

I would like to like to make one thing clear at the very outset and that is, when you speak of a train robbery, this involved no loss of train, merely what I like to call the contents of the train, which were pilfered. We haven't lost a train since 1946, I believe it was - the year of the great snows when we mislaid a small one.

All in all I'd rather have been a judge than a miner. And what's more, being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid to do the job properly, you have to go. Well, the very opposite applies with judges. *

All right, You Great Git, You've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers. I'll fill it with concrete runways, motorways, aircraft, television, automobiles, advertising, plastic flowers, frozen food and supersonic bangs. I'll make it so noisy and disgusting that even You'll be ashamed of Yourself! No wonder You've so few friends. You're unbelievable!

As I looked out into the night sky, across all those infinite stars, it made me realize how insignificant they are.

Everything I've ever told you, including this, is a lie.

I could have been a Judge, but I never had the Latin for the judgin'. I never had it, so I'd had it, as far as being a judge was concerned... I would much prefer to be a judge than a coal miner because of the absence of falling coal.

I didn't know dirty words could be done that artfully.

I saw an advertisement the other day for the secret of life. It said 'The secret of life can be yours for twenty-five shillings. Sent to Secret of Life Institute, Willesden.' So I wrote away, seemed a good bargain, secret of life, twenty-five shillings. And I got a letter back saying, 'If you think you can get the secret of life for twenty-five shillings, you don't deserve to have it. Send fifty shillings for the secret of life.

If there's one thing I can't bear, it's when hundreds of old men come creeping in through the window in the middle of the night and throw all manner of garbage over me. I can't bear that.

I've always been after the trappings of great luxury. But all I've got hold of are the trappings of great poverty. I've got hold of the wrong load of trappings, and a rotten load they are too, ones I could have very well done without.

I've had some wonderful ideas for getting the dominating going. I've got some extremely subtle advertising slogans that should get the public behind us. Things like "Vote for EL Wisty and lovely nude ladies will come and dance with you." It's a complete lie, of course, but you can't afford to be too scrupulous if you're going to dominate the world.

Life is a matter of passing the time enjoyably. There may be other things in life, but I've been too busy passing my time enjoyably to think very deeply about them.

Now I tell you the downside of this is you feel awful, but the upside is you feel terrific.

We exchanged many frank words in our respective languages.