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Bill Bailey

103 quotes

“So go into your local branch of UBS, and say "I'd like to open an account please.", and when they say "What with?" take out a loud hailer and say "NAZI GOLD! Just like you did!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Juxtaposition, you can't handle the juxtaposition!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tried to like it. For me, it was like being smacked around the head by a piece of IKEA furniture: it hurts, but you've got to admire the workmanship.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Orchestras have often been used to conjure up the natural world: Swans, sharks, trout, but not, as far as I know, the often maligned jellyfish.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There we go, that's it. I just hold my hand in this position for the next couple of hours.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not a very well-known fact, but on planes they always carry a trombone just in case there's a disaster and they need to keep morale up. All cabin crew - fully proficient in the trombone. And of course there's a double facility: if you ditch at sea, it can be used as a snorkel.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Was he a Swiss nationalist, or a nutso with a crossbow? I don't know.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... have a banana!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You knew exactly who the good guys were and who were the bad guys just by the chord: the good guys got a perfect fifth - strong, compassionate - the bad guys got an augmented fourth... Just a semitone, but sometimes in life when you make the wrong choices, it's just a semitone out.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the news theme, but it sounds like pure Hollywood entertainment. It sounds like E.T. on a horse being chased by Darth Vader, which is something I'd love to see.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's always been my long-held belief that eventually insects will take over the world.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Welcome to the O2. A unique building in Dublin, in that it is actually finished.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not so great in England at the moment; in an online poll we came last, we actually came bottom of European countries for quality of life, because of things like the weather, obviously, late retirement, poor holiday, poor public services, poor health service; it's basically just a kind of grey, godless wilderness, full of cold pies and broken dreams.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would never condone the burning of a Dan Brown novel, much though I loathe and detest his work. Well, I say "work", you know, words, randomly arranged to form millions of dollars... I'm not bitter at all...”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tonight's show is about doubt. Or maybe it isn't - haven't made my mind up yet.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thank God for Darwin, eh?”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the thing is, I'm amazed they went with Obama at all, you know, I mean, I thought Hilary would have been a shoo-in, but no. [Shrugs] Apparently America's got an issue with gender, not with race. Huh. So, erm...”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's what we've always known for many years outside of Australia...You can't have a world leader called Kevin. [On Kevin Rudd]”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is it an Oud?”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creationists mainly are Americans who think the world was created in 1982 to coincide with the rise of Supertramp, but you can very easily dispute this by playing some of Supertramp's earlier albums.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Or I get my navel fluff out and weave it into wigs so that fleas can act out Victorian melodramas. [On relaxation]”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“James Blunt - a man who recently got voted more annoying than paper cuts.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was digging with a fork out of the kitchen drawer, sewing tictacs, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. After a bit I got bored and just started burying cheap spoons to baffle the archaeologists of the future. [On gardening]”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The actual quote attributed to Russell is, "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise till you have tried to make it precise.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They will take us And they'll make us Human slaves! In an Insect Nation!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where did we all go wrong? The insects used to be our brothers. Along came pesticide And on that day our friendship died And pouring boiling water down ants nests couldn't have helped.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You picked me up from school You attended all my sporting functions You bought me a car Gave me use of a credit card But how can I feel pain, How can I feel pain, How can I feel pain When you're being so supportive?”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man streckt die linke Arm ein, die linke Arm aus Eis, aus, ein, aus Man schütteln alles rund Man macht das Hokey-Kokey und man dreht sich herum Das ist die ganze Sache Ja, das Hokey-Kokey Ja, das Hokey-Kokey Ja, das Hokey-Kokey Knien gebogen, Armen gestreckt Ra, ra, ra”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I stole some pins from the noticeboard And pressed them into my hand And they spelled 'why?' Why did they spell 'why'? Because there weren't enough pins for 'oblivion'.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ("The Song Written From The Perspective Of A Young Man Who Works At Starbucks and Probably Self-Harms", Tinselworm (2007))
“(Song for Prince Charles, performed with Robin Williams on We Are Most Amused (2008))”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've seen truth”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Re:Claims Direct] No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was like you once, Tim. Blonde hair, scraggly beard, child-like ears. Full of beans and spunk. I once punched a bloke in the face for saying Hawk the Slayer was rubbish... but that's not the point, Tim. The point is, I was defending the fantasy genre with terminal intensity when what I should have said is "Dad, you're right. But let's give Krull a try, and we'll discuss it later.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God, I'm in the same studio as de Burgh! He may have stood right where I'm standing now... and just thought his mad thoughts. Like "I am brilliant.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scotch egg is such a Scottish food. It's as though a great Scottish chef said "I need a tasty snack. Let's take an egg... and wrap it in meat! Makes it a bit harder".”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(after Phil Jupittus had insulted Michael Jackson, and David Gest had said 'be nice!') Aw, be nice to the baby-dangling freak.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's like a mohican on your pancreas, man!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Or, as I call it, a Cheesel, it's a Weasel with a Cheese finish.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This shed does not contain me.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Grey and grey and grey and grey,”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Three blokes go into a pub. Well, I say three; could be four or five. Could be nine or ten, doesn't matter. Could have been fifteen, twenty - fifty. Round it up. Hundred. Let's go mad, eh - two-fifty. Tell you what, double it up - five hundred. Thousand! Oh, I've gone mad! Two thousand! Five thousand! (adopting auctioneer persona) Anyone? Five thousand, six thou, six thousand, ten thousand! Small town in Hertfordshire goes into a pub! Fifteen thousand blokes! Alright, let's go - population of Rotterdam. The Hague. Whole of Northern Holland. Mainland U.K. Let's go all the way to the top - Europe, alright? Whole of Europe goes - I say Europe. Could be Eurasia. Not the band, obviously, that's just two of them. Alright, continents - North America! Plus South America! Plus Antartica - that's just eight blokes in a weather station. Not a good example. Alright, make it a lot simpler, all the blokes on the planet go into the pub, right? And the first bloke goes up to the bar and he says "I'll get these in." What an idiot!”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The national [Welsh] dish, cheese on toast, that's fantastic. "That's no bother". "We're having a big ambassadorial reception." "All right, I'll get the grill on shall I? You want a bit of chutney on it?" "No, don't go mad Rhodri, it's only Fiji." I think though that it has actually hampered Wales's cultural diversity, because if you think of the other national dishes, like Ireland - Irish stew, bubbling away for hours on end, during which time poems are written, plays are written, fine linen is crafted, the whimsy is spun; Scotland, you have haggis, many many days it takes to pulverise the eyes, lips and all the toes, every [part] of the animal, the hooves, the shirt, the trousers, the abbatoir worker's laundry, everything goes in there, and it's bubbling away for days on end under the ground in the lung of a small burrowing animal, during which time electric light is invented, penicillin, a fine legal structure, those little things you lick, press down and they ping back up, 'Oh, I forgot about them, oh yeah'; England, roast beef, roasting away for days on end, during which time poor, defenceless countries around the world are brought under the relentless yoke of imperial oppression; Wales, cheese on toast, "Right...oh, it's ready. Shit." Ch. 9, 17:43”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm English, and as such I crave disappointment. That's why I buy Kinder Surprise. Horrible chocolate; nasty little toy: a double-whammy of disillusionment! Sometimes I eat the toy out of sheer despair. I call them the Eggs Of Numbing Inevitability. And when I buy them, I always ask for them in the third person: "Bill Bailey would like the Eggs Of Numbing Inevitability." I did that the other day and it answered me back, and he said to me: "No, I am Bill Bailey. You are not Bill Bailey, you are just a mere doppelgänger. I am the true Bill Bailey, in another dimension." And I went, "Oh, I hadn't planned on that." Then I thought the only way to solve this, I have to run at my doppelgänger, then we will be fused forever. So I ran full-tilt at it, and just before I got there I realised it was the highly polished side of the cheese counter. Ch. 12, 21:57”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm amazed by how compliant people are in this country. They go into service stations - 'cathedrals of despair', as I call them - where baseball-capped ghouls of the night lord it over their congealed bean kingdoms, their fried-bread twilights, their neon demi-mondes, tempting you to enter to become them, undead. "Ooh, beans on toast, £18.95, very reasonable. Oh no, I'm not going to complain. They probably pump them up from London in special tubes." God, £18.95? If that was the price, for my money, each bean would have to be carried over in a heron's beak and laid on an orchid and then placed on a very rare train set and carried all the way to my table on the train set and then pinged off by a tiny little rare vole and it rolls onto a beautiful silk leaf and I eat it with a Fabergé egg. Then you'd get your money's worth. Ch. 16, 26:40”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“BB: Are there any men in? (no response) BB: Any women? Female voices: Yes! BB: Ah, you see, there's this crisis in masculine identity at the moment. Women, totally at home with their sexuality. 'I am woman, wo-man, I, wo-MAN.' Men 'Er.. (awkward expression) Someone else'll shout out, I'll be alright'. Alright, is there any blokes in? Masculine voices: Yeah! BB: You see, there's a term that men feel more comfortable with. Bloke, blokey bloke bloke. It's a kind of friendly term. 'Oh, he's a bloke, lovely bloke, nice bloke, blokey bloke. I'm a bloke, you're a bloke, wahey!' It doesn't impose any unnecessary demands on us as men. 'Bloke', that's just basically 'carry stuff, don't get in the way'. 'Man', that's all kinds of other things, isn't it? That's nobility, gallantry, wisdom... that conjures up some image of a bloke in a cardigan with a pipe saying 'Cover up those table legs, mother, they're inflaming my sexual ardour'. Ch. 24, 53:21”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s this one celebrity, Rosie O’Donnell, a talk show host, and she said this: “I don’t know anything about Afghanistan, but I know it’s full of terrorists, speaking as a mother.” So what is this "speaking as a mother" then? Is that a euphemism for "talking out of my arse"? "Suspending rational thought for a moment"? As a rational human being, Al-Qaeda are a loose association of psychopathic zealots who could be rounded up with a sustained police investigation. But speaking as a parent, they’re all eight foot tall, they’ve got lasers under their moustaches, a huge eye in their foreheads and the only way to kill them is to NUKE every country that hasn’t sent us a Christmas card in the the last 20 years!! "Speaking as a mother".”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Talking of tough gigs, I saw a very tough gig in New York, it was Whitney Houston. She was doing this open-air gig in New York. It was in the winter, and it was like minus eight degrees, in Lincoln Plaza. She was meant to be on at three, there were about three-thousand people there. Ten past three, no sign of Whitney. Half past three, crowd getting a bit grumpy, a bit restless. Eventually, four o'clock, Whitney sashays onto the stage in a fur coat. She comes up to the microphone, she says "I just want to say I love every single one of you." And this huge black guy next to me says "Sing, bitch!". Tough crowd.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even if you’re not particularly religious, then you have to admit that religion surrounds us even in the most mundane aspects of our lives. I was trying to rent a car, and the bloke said to me: "You’re not covered for acts of God."I said: "What do you mean by that?", he said: [waving arms] "Woooooh!"I said, "Can you be a bit more specific?", and he went, [vaguely gesticulating] "Eh... ooooh... uh?"I said, "I’m intrigued because you said 'acts of God', and not gods, or spirits, or jinn, or nymphs, but 'God', a capital God, a monotheistic religion, maybe a Judeo-Christian religion, which would imply a belief system, which would perhaps lead to free-will and determinism, so logically anything that man does directly or indirectly is in fact an act of God, so I’m not covered for anything!"He said, "I’ll get the manager."Then I said, "What do you mean by an act of God? What do you mean by that?"He said, "I dunno, a plague of locusts or something.""'A plague of locusts'? They swarm round the vehicle, rip the wing mirrors off, and I’m liable for a fifty pound excess?”And he said, "No, like, rain or something."I said, "Yeah, but how much rain? It’s drizzling a bit now, is that an act of God? At what point does the rain reach a certain level beyond which it takes on the more apocalyptic mantle of the water-based punishment of the Lord!?"And he said, [despairing] "I just work Saturdays."I said "You can’t answer me, can you? Your policy is riddled with theological inconsistency. You disgust me. You twist and turn. You remind me of the Siberian hunting spider, which adopts a highly-convincing limp in three of its eight legs in order to attract its main prey, the so-called Samaritan squirrel, which takes pity on the spider, and then the spider jumps on it and injects the paralysing venom, and the squirrel remains bafflingly philosophical about the whole thing. Not to be confused with the Ukrainian hunting spider, which actually has got a limp and is, as such, completely harmless, and a little bit bitter about the whole thing: [imitating spider] 'Siberian spider have good leg, have nice day, can catch fly, can make web, can catch fly for family, I can do nothing, my leg, it drags behind! It drags! [audience laughs] And you laugh! You make fun! Oh, ha, big joke! I am failure! I am freak! [singing] But in my dreams I can fly, I'm the greatest spider in town. But I wake and it's cold, and I feel so old, and my legs are dragging me down.'"And then the manager came out, and he said: “Stop all that spider singing." Pointed to a sign on the wall: a spider with a line through it. "Oh, fair enough."He said "I can offer you an upgrade, fifty quid, and we can include in it policies set in place by the Marquis de Laplace, the French scientist who declared that all things in the universe are predetermined, so you would be covered even if time-travel was invented during the period of rental.”I said, "Nah, probably leave it.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“BB: So, who here has a guinea pig?Various Audience Members cheerBB: What kind of guinea pig? Muffled suggestions from audience members BB: Nah, you're not serious about it! (Imitates guniea pig owners) "I dunno, some brown thing...". So what breed? Audience Member: Crested! BB: (misunderstands) A what? A crusty...a crusty guinea pig? (Imitates owner) I think you should take it to the vet as soon as possible! "Gah, it's crusting over again, it's crusting up Captain!!" (understands) Ah, crested? What you have there is a newt I think, madam! Some bloke in a pub sold you that! (as man in pub) "Yeah, that's a crested guinea pig, they're lovely, them...”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beautiful ladies in danger. Danger all around the world. But I will protect them, because I am Chris de Burgh! Beautiful ladies in emergency situations. Beautiful ladies are lovely but sometimes they don't take care They're too busy with their makeup and combing their lovely hairTo take basic safety precautions But I will protect them I will save the pretty onesWith their smiles and their beautiful eyesBut let the ugly ones dieI have no place for them in my new world orderI won't waste my seed on hideous trollsKill kill kill kill kill the trolls hunt them down there shall be no clemencyKill kill kill kill kill the trollsLook under the bridges that's where they hideThat's where they hideAnd beauty shall be my bride.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source