Alan Coren Quotes

Alan Coren delivers sharp, satirical takes that poke fun at history and culture, perfect for anyone who enjoys clever, witty commentary.

30 quotes

1. In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, I know one boy who won't be sweating. I intend to raise my coffin-lid briskly, throw a few things into an overnight bag, and, whistling something appropriate, prepare to meet my Maker.

2. Disneyworld:is a historical reconstruction as sanitised as the Kremlin's, and a future vision as uncognisant of contemporary pointers as Peter Pan's. It is a magic carpet under which everything has been swept.

3. Does not even the most sexually democratic of us, among which number I unquestionably count myself, not choke back the tiniest sob at the sight of poor old Denis stumbling along behind, struggling pitifully to hold his trilby on, as the PM strides across Goose Green with the wind managing only to make her hair look more Medusan, and the very mines praying she will not crush them under-heel?

4. A long, soft sigh, one of those very Italian sighs that express so much, that say 'Ah, signor, if only this world were an ideal world, what would I not give to be able to do as you ask, we should sit together in the Tuscan sunshine, you and I, just two men together, and we should drink a bottle of the good red wine, and we should sing, ah, how we should sing.'

5. The word 'souvenir' has, of course, slightly extended itself in meaning until it now denotes almost anything either breakable or useless; but even today, ninety per cent of the items covered by the word are forgettable objects in which cigarettes can be left to go stale.

6. Since Switzerland has nothing else to identify it:and since both its national products, snow and chocolate, melt, the cuckoo clock was invented solely in order to give tourists something solid to remember it by.

7. Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a Wirtschaftswunder, which can be briefly translated as 'The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one.'

8. Strictly speaking, the land does not exist; it is merely dehydrated sea.

9. Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of the country is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers.

10. I rang room service, and asked for a bottle of Perrier, because while I was asleep someone had come in and carpeted my throat.

11. There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water gush out when you get in?

12. Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what it is you want to hear.

13. Jacob is a German Shepherd. (I have never understood why they aren't called German Sheepdogs. What do the Germans call shepherds?)

14. The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.

15. To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.

16. English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit. ... Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds, kumquats ripen, open and plop flatly to the floor-and outside, in a neat, trimly-hoed kitchen-garden, English bohemians sit in cold orderly rows, like carrots.

17. All I know of birds to this date is that sparrows are the ones that are not pigeons.

18. I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.

19. Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

20. I wonder sometimes if manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.

21. Television is more interesting than people. If it were not we should have people standing in the corner of our room.

22. Ethnically, the Germans are Teutonic...being made up of Vandals, Gepidae, and Goths, all of whom emigrated - south from Sweden in about 500 BC; why they emigrated is not exactly clear, but many scholars believe it was because they saw the way Sweden was going, i.e. neutral.

23. Can anything match that first fine discovery of the telephone and all it stood for? That first realization that, contained within ten simple digits, lay the infinitely possible? Out there ... lay six billion ears, all the people in the world available for contact and mystery and insult, unable to resist the beckoning of one small and villainous forefinger.

24. A humorist tells himself every morning, "I hope it's going to be a rough day." When things are going well, it's much harder to make the right jokes.

25. Malta is the only country in the world where the local delicacy is the bread.

26. 10.30 Newsnight: What Are The Chances Of World War Three Breaking Out After You Have Gone To Bed?

27. The Act of God designation on all insurance policies; which means, roughly, that you cannot be insured for the accidents that are most likely to happen to you.

28. Sadly, as with so much about history's heroes, it's the spotting of potential fame that's the difficulty, whether it's publishing their poems, hanging their paintings, or buying their old underwear. Think of the great men whose lives passed in penury and hacking coughs due to public unawareness that their littlest possession would end up at Sothebys or the basement at Fort Knox.

29. Being a personality is not the same thing as having a personality.

30. “Remember: Enjoy your life today, because yesterday has gone and tomorrow may never come.”