"Anyway, beards and drugs leads me neatly to the Taliban; were they really that backward, or were they the finest minds of the fourteenth century? Nobody seems to know or care. That ideology was never going to work, was it? It was just cobbled together from different beliefs: The anti-intellectualism of the Khmer Rouge, the religious persecution of the Nazis, the enforced beard-wearing from the world of folk music, and the segregation and humiliation of women from the world of golf."

“But our country's equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, he's got a shooter!”

“BB: So, what form did these experiences take?Audience Member: Swimming with dolphins! BB: Dolby? What, you hear everything with a slightly reduced hiss? I like to hear the world in Dolby, it's fantastic! Mind you, it means that no snake will I ever hear. And I said that in a very strange way. No snake will I ever hear, mmm! Never put Dolby on snake detectors, that's what we must remember.”

“Daddy, turn it off, it's spoiling my brain”

“Three blind mice walk into a pub. But they are unaware of their surroundings, so to derive humour from it would be exploitative.”

“God, I'm in the same studio as de Burgh! He may have stood right where I'm standing now... and just thought his mad thoughts. Like "I am brilliant.”

“It's always been my long-held belief that eventually insects will take over the world.”