He got used early to the adulation of a wide public and eventually decided that he could do without it; long before the end, fame had to chase him far harder than he chased it. But among his fellow practitioners his lustre was undimmed, unequalled. and unchallenged... Just as the astronauts riding up on their rockets all worshipped Chuck Yeager, the jet pilot who never joined them in space because he flew too well with wings, so the media millionaires all knew that Cook was the unsurpassable precursor who had done it all before they did, and done it better. ~ Clive James, in an online tribute.

It is a sad fact that when people are really enjoying themselves and laughing immoderately, they can afterwards remember very little of the conversation, very …

He wasn't just a genius, he had the genius's impatience with the whole idea of doing something again. He reinvented an art form, exhausted its possibilities, a…

I'll leave with a story whose victim, Sir David Frost, won't mind it being told, because he tells it himself. David Frost rang Peter Cook up some years ago. 'P…

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

Once the press learnt of her success, she was called 'the girl from Mars'.

'I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?'