Spike Milligan
The experience of being in the Army changed my whole life; I never believed that an organization such as ours could ever go to war, leave alone win it. It was, as Yeats remarked of the Easter Rising, 'A terrible beauty.'Collection: Easter
Thankfully, we didn't stop at Malta. I think Malta was thankful, too.Collection: Thankful
All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.Collection: Money
It was a perfect marriage. She didn't want to and he couldn't.Collection: Marriage
How long was I in the army? Five foot eleven.Collection: Funny
Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.Collection: Money
My Father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.Collection: Dad
I have the body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge.Collection: Health
A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.Collection: Funny
I can speak Esperanto like a native.Collection: Funny
We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. 'Private Edwards, E.', a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking feeling, hoping... If war was a game of cards, I'd say someone was cheating.Collection: War
When I get depressed, I try to get something for the terrible sadness that comes over me and create something in terms of poetry.Collection: Poetry
Money couldn't buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.Collection: Money
The lunacy continues and has every chance of becoming a way of life unless we stop it soon. Men are getting so used to wars that the psychiatric wing of the RAMC are planning how to break the news to the men when the war is over.Collection: Chance
I'm not afraid of dying I just don't want to be there when it happens.
It's all in the mind, you know.
Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?
I have resigned from the human race. Look at the way we treat animals.
I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.
I'm a hero with coward's legs.
And God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
I can't stand being late. I try to be professional. I try not to let people down. But people let me down. That's why I don't rely on anyone to call me. That's why I have clocks as well as people. I have to be able to call myself; it's the only way to be sure.
You couldn't enclose people in institutions or hospitals or almshouses in the way the Victorians managed to do. India was too big. Seeing the suffering people was terrible, but I think I was more distraught at the needless cruelty to so many animals.
Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.
I spent many years laughing at Harry Secombe's singing until somebody told me that it wasn't a joke.
The night before Tilbury, the Cordon Bleu gourmet dinner turned out Cordon Brown. Six out of ten to the chef for trying and ten out of ten to us for eating it.
One important thing I recall about India was that it was quiet. It was never noisy in the way that life was noisy in London.
My father was a soldier, which meant that he was a warrior, which meant that he was important. My mother rode a horse and sang in the Governor-General's band, so that made her important as well.
Driver Shepherd and I had been detailed to drive Lt. Budden in the Wireless Truck. We had been standing by vehicles for an hour, and nothing had happened, but it happened frequently.
I remember lying out in my bed and looking at the vast, quiet sky. Right up above my head, there were three stars in a row, and I remember thinking, 'Well, I'll have those three stars all my life, and wherever I am, they will be. They are my stars, and they belong to me.'
May 8th 1943. Deluge. The rain not only fell mainly on the plain in Spain; it also fell mainly on the back of the bloody neck, dripping down the spine into the socks where it came out of the lace-holes in the boots.
For ten years Caesar ruled with an iron hand. Then with a wooden foot, and finally with a piece of string.
Is there anything worn under the kilt? No, it's all in perfect working order.
I don't think of depression as contagious. Other depressed people challenge the idea - which can be very persistent and irritating - that there is something odd about you: that you are unique with regard to this wretched state.
Things began to improve when I went to Rangoon. To begin with, my father was promoted, which meant he was at home more. The matriarchal society was ended, and for the first time, I went to a boys' school.
I shook hands with a friendly Arab. I still have my right arm to prove it.
We reach a secondary road and - here comes the bonus - we pass the Temple of Neptune and Cerene, at Paestum, both looking beautiful in the sunlight. Strung from the Doric columns are lines of soldiers' washing. At last they had been put to practical use. If only the ancient Greeks had known.
As I kept having episodes of depression, I realized that it was not a one-off: that I had, well, not a disease, really - more an illness.
I am afraid that, like Timon of Athens, I just cannot let go of my friendships.
It was implanted in me that I came from a different class - an elevated class. I was cushioned by servants. I don't remember doing anything for myself. I only played and went to school.
My parents always threw everything out, gave everything away. I'm surprised they never threw me away. That's why I've always kept my children's things. My parents had no feelings for belongings.
I had stopped going to church the moment I joined the Regiment. No more could my mother nag me into God's presence.
Is the modern social pattern of unending change and movement the cause of two modern diseases, insecurity and dissatisfaction? How lucky Thomas Hood was to be able to write, 'I remember, I remember the house where I was born.' I don't even know what mine looked like!
Unbeknown to me, my manager, under my very nose (in a crouching position) has all these years been secretly compiling a book from my correspondence. I often wondered what she was doing in my office. She never did a stroke of work for me. All the time, I have been working for her.
My father being a soldier, every time I saw soldiers marching - 'Well,' I thought, 'my father's that,' and these soldiers were always looking magnificent. And I thought they were powerful; they were all-powerful. I knew that they were an elite in India.
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the lightCollection: Blessed
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, which is just long enough to be president of the United States.Collection: Long
We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong!Collection: Humour
Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.Collection: Food
There is a time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, and at no time are the three of them very far apart.Collection: Time