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Eddie Izzard
84 quotes
“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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: eddieizzard.com, Biography: Ch. 5 (undated, Google had indexed the page by 2013)
“Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion – they're two words which are both … different. In spelling.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Agatha Christie? We go back years, me and Ag. She's a … she's just a … she's dead, isn't she?”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And we're going, "Oh, Captain Clever! Whoa-ho-ho! Rattle it, and if it doesn't go off, it can't be a bomb!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a lesbian trapped in a man's body.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cats have a scam going – you buy the food, they eat the food, they fuck off; that's the deal.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[About homophobes] As long as they're homophobic behind closed doors, and don't hurt anyone, I'm fine with it.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Off to Azerbaijan!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like my coffee like I like my women... in a plastic cup.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like my women like I like my coffee... covered in beeees!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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?”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going, "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag…? "What? We don't need a bloody flag. This is our country, you bastards!" "No flag, no country, you can't have one! Those are the rules ... that I just made up! And I'm backing it up with this gun that was lent from the National Rifle Association.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Someone's killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning! I can't even get down the gym. Your diary must look odd: 'Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch – death, death, death – afternoon tea – death, death, death – quick shower …'”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They went to the Moon and they brought back rock. Trouble is, we've got rock. That was the one thing we didn't need, wasn't it? "Rock, Neil? I don't know whether you looked at the planet before you took off, but it's made of fucking rock!" "But it's Moon rock …" "Oh, fucking hell, this is Earth rock, Neil, come on! Have you heard, on the stock market, rock's gone up three points? No, it hasn't, has it? 'Cause it's fucking rock! We wanted diamonds, sherbet or a squirrel with a gun!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Talking about American and British Language) You say 'erbs and we say herbs, because there's a fucking 'H' in it.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can have fantastic conversations with women about clothing and make-up, the external areas of girliedom, because I completely share their interest in it. So I have the fun, sexy, let's-go-dress-up part of being a woman in me but not the rest.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't do drag [...] Drag is about glamour, pearls, wigs, sequins and that's not where I am. What I am doing is much edgier.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On the aim of his exercise routine] Lean and lithe are the two places I am trying to get to. Seeing as I am fairly blokey-looking, with a broad chest, if I am going to get into what people consider girls' clothing, I need to go for lean in the torso department.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I want people to understand is this isn't an act. This is an intrinsic part of who I am. I wear girlie stuff on the street, not just on stage.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Eddie to Sexie by design", The Times (6 December 2003)
“That's how I see my audience, a surrogate affection machine. It doesn't necessarily have to be comedy, either. It could be drama or music, anything where you want that love back.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you can walk down the street in women's clothes, you can do anything.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On coming out on stage] My first joke at that gig was, 'If you're a stand-up, it's good to be a minority because then you've got something to rail against. If you're black, you can rail against white supremacists; if you're poor, you can rail against the rich. But if you're a white, male, middle-class stand-up, it's shit. So thank God I'm a transvestite.' It went down a storm.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was walking past a building site in Liverpool and a brickie shouted at me from the scaffolding, 'Hey Eddie, where's your lippie?' I said I'd left it at home, and he replied: 'Wanna borrow mine?' Moments like that make everything worthwhile.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you're going up for a Hollywood film, you'd better stay in boy mode because producers don't have wild imaginations.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Eddie Izzard: The tough transvestite who can take care of himself", The Independent (23 May 2004)
“[On fully transitioning to being a woman via surgery] If I looked beautiful, like Julian Clary, then maybe I would do it. But the way I look, everyone would know I was a bloke who had had a sex change. Besides, it would confuse things because I like girls.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview, as cited in "I'm all boy", The Telegraph (30 July 2006)
“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.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pope Pius XII was meant to go and castigate Hitler for being a [air quotes] "Genocidal Fuckhead … [air quotes again] with bunny rabbit ears". But he didn't, he wimped out, and for that history has renamed that Pope as "Pope Gutless Bastard I.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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]”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh … well, until you killed them all, I suppose.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So … uh … I'd better explain the tits. Um … didn't have those at school. Wanted to, but not in the school curriculum … even though I asked.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No matter how much makeup 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?”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So, I thought, it's 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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 …”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So I've learnt that the world is 4,500 million years old. If you're very religious, then it's not 4,500 million years old, it's 6,000 years old. One of these is not correct.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I think that if God did exist, he had many children. I think Jesus proves this. Jesus must be the seventh son of God. A-sus, B-sus, C-sus, D-sus, E-sus, F-sus, G-sus. That's just logic. That's just mathematical. And T-sus would always be fucking about. And P-sus does deliveries. C-sus started the Roman Empire. Cae-sus. F-sus, City in Turkey. B-sus was covered in something. Some people applauding there; other people going, "What?" … B-sus was covered in bees.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scrabble was invented by Nazis to piss off kids with dyslexia. This is true, they proved this one. The word dyslexia was invented by Nazis to piss off kids with dyslexia.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Charles Darwin wrote a famous book in 18[gibberish]. And that book was an interesting book, cuz it was called "Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-You".”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've got this weird thing which is, for one thing, making the stuff universal. Anyone would get the references in my show, no matter what the country.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source