Alan Partridge · 320 pages
Rating: (6.4K votes)
“Putting a damp spoon back in the bowl is the tea-drinking equivalent of sharing a needle. And I did not want to end up with the tea-drinking equivalent of AIDS.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Hello, Alan." said Carol's dad Keith.
"Hello, Alan." said Carol's mum, Stella, not bothering to think of a greeting of her own.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“The human brain comprises 70% water, which means it's a similar consistency to tofu. Picture that for a second - a blob of tofu the size and shape of a brain. Now imagine taking that piece of tofu, and forcing your thumbs into it hard. It would burst wouldn't it?
Okay, now imagine those thumbs weren't thumbs but thumb-shaped pieces of bad news. And there weren't two of them, they were about half a dozen. Imagine you were forcing all six pieces of bad news - a divorce, multiple career snubs, accusations from the family of a dead celebrity, estranged kids, borderline homelessness, that kind of thing - into a piece of tofu.
With me? Good. Now imagine it's not tofu, but a human brain. And they're not pieces of bad news but six human thumbs. That's what happened to me. In 2001, my brain had half a dozen thumbs pushed into it.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“I’d spend hours in HMVs, Virgin Megastores and second-hand record shops staffed by greasy-haired 40-year-olds dressed as 20-year-olds, listening to contemporary music of every genre – Britrock, heavy maiden, gang rap, brakebeat. And I came to a startling but unshakeable conclusion: no genuinely good music has been created since 1988.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“For three long days, I felt the cold hand of death on my shoulder. Lost in the depths of despair I tried to figure out what I had done to deserve this. I wasn't an evil person. The worst thing I'd ever done was kick a pig - School trip to Heston Farm, 1964, I maintain it was self-defence.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“The father, Trevor, was an asthmatic, but what he lacked in being able to breath quietly, he more than made up for with parental skills.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Sadly, I can't say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place - Hell.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“He is also a keen cook, gardener and birder. He has no middle fingers on one hand, so he can't swear but is permanently doing the heavy metal sign.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“I woke with a start. At first I assumed I’d trumped myself awake again .”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“I woke with a start, at first I thought I had trumped myself awake again - it was summer so there was lots of fresh vegetables in our diet. But as I listened through the darkness I realized that something far worse was going on. My mother and father were having the row to end all rows. A sudden shot of fear ripped through my pre-pubic body. And now I did trump. The noise fizzled out of my back passage like a child calling for help. That child was me.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Snowflakes fell from the sky like tiny pieces of a snowman who had stood on a landmine.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Like a good-looking John Merrick, mine was a face that looked really shit.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Sport, on the other hand, is straightforward. In badminton, if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball, if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis, if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first or second rallies you’ve won in that game, or 10 for the third, with an indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two 10-point (or 15-point) segments clear of his opponent. It’s clear and simple.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“As I write these words I’m noisily chomping away on not one, but two Murray Mints. I’ve a powerful suck and soon they’ll be whittled away to nothing. But for the time being at least they have each other. For the time being, they are brothers. Which is more than could be said for me, for I was an only child. I”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“If I was feeling like a challenge, I'd kick out the plug, turn the taps on and see if I could maintain the exact water level. It was a bit like balancing the clutch in an old Mini Metro. Although tricky at first, by the time I checked out I could find the bath's biting point within three minutes. Satisfying? Just bit.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“Tears streamed down my face. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But at the same time I knew that that afternoon's downpour would have made the slate tiles so slippery that achieving any kind of purchase would have been impossible.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“There are no buts, my son. True there are degrees of honor — but one man can have only one code. Do what you like. It's your choice. Some things a man must decide for himself. Sometimes you have to adapt to circumstances. But for the love of God guard yourself and your conscience — no one else will — and know that a bad decision at the right time can destroy you far more surely than any bullet!”
― James Clavell, quote from King Rat
“Three is the number of those who do holy work;
Two is the number of those who do lover's work;
One is the number of those who do perfect evil
Or perfect good.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Abarat
“Seriously,” Shane said, “this kind of is the worst situation we’ve ever been in, right?”
“Speak for yourself,” Michael said. “I got myself killed last year. Twice.”
“Oh yeah. You’re right—last year really sucked for you.”
― Rachel Caine, quote from Kiss of Death
“He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from The Lions of Al-Rassan
“The story of Kelly is easily told. He was a murderous thug who deserved to be hanged and was. He came from a family of rough Irish settlers, who made their living by stealing livestock and waylaying innocent passers-by. Like most bushrangers he was at pains to present himself as a champion of the oppressed, though in fact there wasn’t a shred of nobility in his character or his deeds. He killed several people, often in cold blood, sometimes for no very good reason. In 1880, after years on the run, Kelly was reported to be holed up with his modest gang (a brother and two friends) in Glenrowan, a hamlet in the foothills of the Warby Range in north-eastern Victoria. Learning of this, the police assembled a large posse and set off to get him. As surprise attacks go, it wasn’t terribly impressive. When the police arrived (on an afternoon train) they found that word of their coming had preceded them and that a thousand people were lined up along the streets and sitting on every rooftop eagerly awaiting the spectacle of gunfire. The police took up positions and at once began peppering the Kelly hideout with bullets. The Kellys returned the fire and so it went throughout the night. The next dawn during a lull Kelly stepped from the dwelling, dressed unexpectedly, not to say bizarrely, in a suit of home-made armour – a heavy cylindrical helmet that brought to mind an inverted bucket, and a breastplate that covered his torso and crotch. He wore no armour on his lower body, so one of the policemen shot him in the leg. Aggrieved, Kelly staggered off into some nearby woods, fell over and was captured. He was taken to Melbourne, tried and swiftly executed. His last words were: ‘Such is life.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from In a Sunburned Country
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