Wikidude's Quotes Page #92

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Hacker:
Bernard, what do YOU know about this? Tell me on your word of honour.

Bernard:
Oh, well, I... er... Er, that is... there was. Someone did.

Sir Humphrey:
It’s a lot of gossip, that's all. Rumour, hearsay.

Hacker:
Bernard?

Bernard:
Well one of the Kumranis did tell me he'd received...

Sir Humphrey:
Hearsay, Minister.

Hacker:
Hearsay?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, Bernard heard him say it.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
Isn't this terrible? Print baseless accusations like this!

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, yes, yes, terrible.

Hacker:
Baksheesh, palm-greasing! Good God, we're British!

Sir Humphrey:
Absolutely, Minister!

Hacker:
Still, it's not like the FT to print a story like this unless there's something behind it. Is there something behind it, Humphrey?

Bernard:
I think the sports news is behind it.

Hacker:
I want to know the truth, Humphrey.

Sir Humphrey:
I don't think you do, Minister.

Hacker:
Will you answer a direct question?

Sir Humphrey:
I strongly advise you not to ask a direct question.

Hacker:
Why?

Sir Humphrey:
It might provoke a direct answer.

Hacker:
It never has yet.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Humphrey:
Well, obviously I'm not a trained lawyer or I wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit!

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... Zero?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, Minister.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
How am I going to explain the missing documents to the Mail?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these.

[passes Hacker a memo]

Hacker:
"This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967..." Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?

Sir Humphrey:
No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.

Hacker:
"...Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments". That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Humphrey:
The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume; but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.

Hacker:
I beg your pardon?

Sir Humphrey:
It was... I.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
Get Humphrey to come back here at once.

Bernard:
Yes, Minister. [Picks up phone] The Minister wonders if Sir Humphrey could spare time for a meeting sometime in the next few days.

Hacker:
At once.

Bernard:
In fact, sometime today is really...

Hacker:
At once!

Bernard:
...Sometime during the next 60 seconds. [hangs up] He's coming round now.

Hacker:
Why? Did he faint?

Bernard:
No, he's just, you know...

[they both start giggling]

Hacker:
This is serious, Bernard.

Bernard:
Yes, I know.

Hacker:
This is no laughing matter.

Bernard:
No, certainly not.

Hacker:
The question is, how am I going to deal with it?

Bernard:
In my opinion...

Hacker:
The question was purely rhetorical, Bernard.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
Bernard, how did Sir Humphrey know I was with Dr Cartwright?

Bernard:
God moves in a mysterious way.

Hacker:
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Humphrey is not God, OK?

Bernard:
Will you tell him or shall I?

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Bernard:
[on the phone] Hello, Graham, it's Bernard. Tell Sir Humphrey that the Minister's just gone walkabout. Yes, yes, AWOL. Well, of course I told him, yes. I know. I think you'd better let him know right away.

[hangs up]

Bernard:
One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... TEN.

Sir Humphrey:
[walks in on the stroke of ten] What's all this about?

Bernard:
The minister's just left the office, that's all.

Sir Humphrey:
That's all? Do you mean he's loose in the building? Why didn't you warn me?

Bernard:
I did advise him, but he is the minister. There's no prohibition against ministers talking to their staff.

Sir Humphrey:
Who's he talking to?

Bernard:
Perhaps he was just restless.

Sir Humphrey:
If the minister's restless, he can feed the ducks in St James's Park!

Bernard:
Yes, Sir Humphrey.

Sir Humphrey:
Tell me who the minister's talking to.

Bernard:
Well, surely the minister can talk to anyone?

Sir Humphrey:
Bernard... I'm in the middle of writing your annual report. Now, it is not a responsibility that either of us would wish me to discharge whilst I am in a bad temper. Who's the minister talking to?

Bernard:
Perhaps you could help me. I can see that you should know if he calls on an outsider. I fail to see why you should be informed if he just wants to, to take a hypothetical example, to check a point with... Dr Cartwright...

Sir Humphrey:
Thank you, Bernard. Must fly.

Bernard:
Room 4017.

Sir Humphrey:
I know!

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Humphrey:
If local authorities don't send us statistics, Government figures will be a nonsense.

Hacker:
Why?

Sir Humphrey:
They'll be incomplete.

Hacker:
Government figures are a nonsense, anyway.

Bernard:
I think Sir Humphrey wants to ensure they're a complete nonsense.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Humphrey:
[talking about nuclear fallout shelters] Well, you have the weapons; you must have the shelters.

Hacker:
I sometimes wonder why we need the weapons.

Sir Humphrey:
Minister! You're not a unilateralist?

Hacker:
I sometimes wonder, you know.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, then, you must resign from the government!

Hacker:
Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not that unilateralist! Anyway, the Americans will always protect us from the Russians, won't they?

Sir Humphrey:
Russians? Who's talking about the Russians?

Hacker:
Well, the independent deterrent.

Sir Humphrey:
It's to protect us against the French!

Hacker:
The French?! But that's astounding!

Sir Humphrey:
Why?

Hacker:
Well they're our allies, our partners.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, they are now, but they've been our enemies for the most of the past 900 years. If they've got the bomb, we must have the bomb!

Hacker:
If it's for the French, of course, that's different. Makes a lot of sense.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes. Can't trust the Frogs.

Hacker:
You can say that again!

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Arnold:
Life is so much easier when ministers think they've achieved something; it stops them fretting, and their little temper tantrums.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, but now he wants to introduce his next idea.

Sir Arnold:
A minister with two ideas? I can't remember when we last had one of those.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Hacker:
The three articles of Civil Service faith: it takes longer to do things quickly, it's more expensive to do them cheaply and it's more democratic to do them in secret.

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Humphrey:
Now, Minister, if you are going to promote women just because they're the best person for the job, you will create a lot of resentment throughout the whole of the Civil Service!

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Bernard:
You remember that letter you wrote "Round Objects" on?

Hacker:
Oh yes.

Bernard:
It's come back from Sir Humphrey's office. He's commented on it.

Hacker:
What does he say?

Bernard:
Who is Round and to what does he object?

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

[How to deal with a nonsensical complaint]

Bernard:
We can CGSM it.

Hacker:
CGSM?

Bernard:
Civil Service code, Minister. It stands for "Consignment of Geriatric Shoe Manufacturers".

Hacker:
What?

Bernard:
A load of old cobblers, Minister.

Hacker:
I'm not a civil servant. I shall use my own code. I shall write: "Round Objects".

Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Sir Arnold:
If once they accepted the principle that senior Civil Servants could be removed for incompetence, that would be the thin end of the wedge. We could lose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds, perhaps.

Sir Humphrey:
Thousands.

Yes, Minister, Series One (1986)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

[Sir Humphrey is suspected of having once been a Russian spy.]

Sir Humphrey:
So what do you think I should do, Arnold?

Sir Arnold Robinson:
[calmly pours his coffee] Hmm, difficult. Depends a bit on whether you actually were spying or not. [notices Sir Humphrey's horrified expression] One must keep an open mind.

Sir Humphrey:
But I couldn't have been! I wasn't at Cambridge!

Yes, Minister, Series One (1986)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Bernard:
It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it: I have an independent mind; you are an eccentric; he is round the twist.

Yes, Minister, Series One (1986)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Peter Harding:
Soames has been waiting for a bishopric for years.

Sir Humphrey:
Long time, no see.

Yes, Minister, Series One (1986)  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Psychologist:
Interesting. I think you're ready to see yourself for the first time. Not how you imagine yourself, but how you truely are. (holds up a mirror to Xavier, showing him to be a human being)

Xavier:
Hot dang, I'm cured!

Psychologist:
(puts down mirror, revealing himself to be an Xavier-like creature) Cured? Who said there was anything wrong with you?

Xavier: Renegade Angel, Season 2  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Xavier:
I'm not violent at all, look! [blasts a laser and kills a group of people playing volleyball]

Ink Blot:
But you killed those people!

Xavier:
Did I? [aside glance] What he doesn't know is that I'm using reverse psychology on him.

Ink Blot:
I can tell you're trying to use reverse psychology on me.

Xavier:
That proves he doesn't know!

Xavier: Renegade Angel, Season 2  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Xavier:
[after having sex with his mother] I am no longer a momma's boy. She made me a mama's man.

Xavier: Renegade Angel, Season 2  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

Xavier:
[lapping his own blood] If I could do it all over again, I would do exactly the same thing.

Amy “Peanut butter” Warner:
Eat that ketchup nice and good.

Xavier: Renegade Angel, Season 2  Show Quote

added 8 months ago

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