“If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn’t say Einstein, Newton... I’d go Milligan, Cleese, Everett. Sessions.”
David Brent (Series 1 Episode 2)

“Give me half hour with her I’d be up to me nuts in guts.”
Finchy, Chris Finch (Series 1 Episode 3)

“What is the single most important thing for a company? Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It’s the people, investment in people. My proudest moment here wasn’t when I increased profits by 17%, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No. It was a young Greek guy, first job in the country, hardly spoke a word of English, but he came to me and he went ‘Mr Brent, will you be the Godfather to my child?’.
Didn’t happen in the end. We had to let him go, he was rubbish. He was rubbish!”
Brent (Series 1 Episode 1)

“He’s thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 3)

“I live with my parents.”
“Cherish them. Both of mine are dead. Well, my dad’s not dead, but in a home, so good as.”
Tim and David (Series 1 Episode 3)

“Me, lager. Finchy, Lager. Gareth, lager sometimes cider, so different drinks for different...needs.”
David (Series 1 Episode 5)

Jennifer offers David the chance to take her old job, but that he’d have to leave his staff to do so:
“I know that you’re very loyal to your family here.”
“I’d be loyal to his family, it’s one big family.”
“I’m just sensitive to the fact that you have strong, let’s say emotional ties to your team.”
“Well, yeah, but there is the emotion as good in business syndrome, sure, notwithstanding the cruel to be kind scenarios-”
“I’m sorry David, you’ve lost me.”
“Well, you’re not looking at the whole pie Jenny. Wernham-Hogg is one big pie, and if they’ve let me in charge of that one big pie, then I’ll be in charge of the pie, and the people are the fruit-”
“I don’t have time for the pie thing David.”
“Yeah, oh, well I’ll take the job please.”
Jennifer and David (Series 1 Episode 6)

“In fact, a postage stamp is legal tender. A bus driver would have to accept that as currency.”
“Yeah, that’d happen.”
“Well, if he doesn’t, report him.”
“Yeah, I’ll report him while I’m walking home.”
“Get a taxi, if you’ve got enough stamps.”
“or cash ‘em in at the Post Office.”
“Shouldn’t have to. Shouldn’t have to.”
David, Tim, Gareth and Dawn (Series 1 Episode 4)

“I’m assistant regional manager.”
“Assistant to the regional manager.”
Gareth and David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“I watched that Peak Practice.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen it.”
“Bloody repeat.”
“Annoying innit?”
“Not for me, I hadn't seen it.”
Keith and Tim (Series 1 Episode 5)

“If a good man comes to me, and says thankyou David, for the opportunity and continued support in the work-related arena, but I’ve done that, I wanna better myself, I wanna move on, then I can make that dream come true, to, AKA, for you.”
David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“What ones are your that I use?”
“Same shit, different day, that’s mine. Exsqueeze me, instead of excuse me.”
“Wankyou very much.”
“Yeah, I invented that.”
Gareth, David and Tim (Series 1 Episode 3)

“So when are you leaving me?”
“erm, probably won’t be for quite a while.”
“Autumn?”
“Probably not.”
“I thought you wanted to go back to university and everything?”
“Yeah, I will, but there’s a slight bit of a change in plan.”
“Oh, right.”
“David’s made me senior sales clerk.”
“Wow. I thought you wanted to be a psychologist.”
“Oh, yeah, but senior sales clerk, it’s £500 guaranteed extra a year, and if I do a bit of networking, then there’s every chance I could be in David’s chair in 3 years.”
“And all that talk about moving on in the world?”
“No, I said moving up, yeah, moving up. Moving up can mean within an internal ladder framework, or sideways to external, then up. You know, you gotta look at the whole pie, vis-à-vis my current life situation.”
Dawn and Tim (Series 1 Episode 6)

“All farmers have wives.”
“This one doesn’t, he’s gay.”
“Well, then, he shouldn’t be allowed near animals should he.”
Gareth and Tim (Series 1 Episode 4)

“People look at me, they say he’s tough, he was in the army he’s gonna be hard, by the book. But I am caring, and sensitive. Isn’t Schindler’s list a brilliant film?”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 2)

“This is the accounts department, the number bods. Do not be fooled by their job descriptions, they are absolutely mad, all of ‘em. Especially that one, he’s mental. Not literally of course, that wouldn’t work.”
David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“I could catch a monkey. If I was starving I could. I’d make poison darts out of the poison of the deadly frogs. One milligram of that poison can kill a monkey. Or a man. Prick yourself and you’d be dead within a day. Or longer. Different frogs, different times.”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 2)

Gareth’s stapler has been put in jelly (again):
“Gareth, it’s only a trifling matter.”
“Here we go, always like this.”
“You should put him in custody.”
“Ha, he’s gonna fit in here, we’re like Vic and Bob. And one extra one.”
Tim, Ricky and David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“I don’t know where we’re going tonight. Obviously Finchy’s a sophisticated guy, and Gareth’s a culture vulture, so will it be opera, ballet, I don’t know. I think the RSCs in town, so er... having said that at Chasers it hooch for a pound and wonderbras get in free night.”
Tim (Series 1 Episode 5)

“If a military man like you, a soldier, er, could you give a man a lethal blow?”
“If I was forced to, I could. If it was absolutely necessary, if he was attacking me.”
“If he was coming, really hard?”
“Yeah, if my life was in danger, yeah.”
“And do you always imagine doing it face to face with a bloke, or could you take man from behind?”
“Either ways easy.”
“So you could take a man from behind?”
“Yeah.”
“Lovely.”
Tim, Gareth and Dawn (Series 1 Episode 2)

“I’m gonna play a very bad hotel manager who just doesn’t care, and-”
“Sorry, if it’s a Basil Fawlty type character, well, er, maybe I should do it, just for the comedy-”
“Let me play it, just to kick things off.”
“Yeah, well I’ll probably bring something to this role anyway.”
Rowan, the training bloke and David (Series 1 Episode 4)

Gareth, trying out a chat up line in Chasers:
“Condom’s come in all different flavours nowadays. There’s strawberry and curry and that. Do you like curry?”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 5)

“Have you made any redundancies?”
“I gave a speech, only this morning, to my staff, assuring them there would not be cutbacks at this branch, and that there certainly wouldn’t be redundancies.”
“Well why on earth would you do that?”
“Why? Ooh, a little word that I think’s important in management called morale.”
“Well surely it’s gonna be worse for morale in the long run when there are going to be redundancies and you’ve told people there won’t be.”
“...... they won’t remember.”
Jennifer and David (Series 1 Episode 2)

“He proposed on a Valentine’s day, although he didn’t do it face to face, he did it in one of the little Valentine bits in the paper. I think he had to pay for it by the word, because it just said ‘Lee love Dawn, marriage?’ which you know, I like, because it’s not often you get to something that’s both romantic and thrifty.”
Dawn (Series 1 Episode 4)

“So there I am, back of the cab, both of them got their laughing gear round my old single barrel pump action yoghurt rifle, yeah-”
“ha, his knob.”
Finchy and David (Series 1 Episode 5)

“There are limits to my comedy. There are things that I’ll never laugh at. The handicapped. Because there’s nothing funny about them. Or any deformity. It’s like when you see someone look at a little handicapped and go ‘ooh, look at him, he’s not able-bodied. I am, I’m prejudiced.’ Yeah, well, at least the little handicapped fella is able-minded. Unless they’re not, it’s difficult to tell with the wheelchair ones.”
David (Series 1 Episode 3)

“Well, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that Neil will be taking over both branches, and some of you will lose your jobs. Those of you who are kept on will have to relocate to Swindon, if you wanna stay. I know, gutting. On a more positive note, the good news is, I’ve been promoted, so....every cloud. You’re still thinking about the bad news aren’t you?”
David (Series 1 Episode 6)

“I’m angry, and not because I’m in it, but because it degrades women. Which I hate.”
David (Series 1 Episode 2)

“Gareth, quick test exercise, ultimate fantasy?”
“hmm?”
“We’re just doing the ultimate fantasy, we’re all doing it.”
“Two lesbians probably, sisters. I’m just watching.”
“oh, um, Tim? Do you have one?”
“I’d never thought I’d have to say this, but can I hear more from Gareth please?”
Rowan, Gareth, David and Tim (Series 1 Episode 4)

“We go there every Wednesday night, and it’s a fun place, but it’s full of loose women. My own problem with that is venereal disease, which is disabilitating right, especially for a soldier. And it’s irresponsible to the rest of your unit as well, right. You’ve been under attack for days, there’s a soldier down, he’s wounded, gangrene’s setting in, ‘who’s used all the penicillin?’ ‘Oh, Mark Paxon sir, he’s got knobrot of some tart.’”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 5)

“I like ballet, I love the novels of Proust, I love the work of Alan Delon, and I think that’s what influenced her buying me Hat FM. I like the radio to!”
Tim (Series 1 Episode 3)

“The thing is though, no-one’s dispensable in my book, because we’re like one big organism, one big animal. The guys upstairs on the phones, they’re like the mouth. The guys down here, the hands.”
“And what part are you?”
“Good question. Probably the humour.”
David and Jennifer (Series 1 Episode 2)

Gareth on possible redundancies:
“I’m not worried for me, I’ll be alright, but if there does have to be a cull, then so be it. I mean, that’s just natural selection, in the wild some people wouldn’t survive. Imagine a warehouse, where a little midget fellow is driving a forklift. He can’t see over the top, he’s got great big platform shoes on so he can reach the pedals, cos of his little legs. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Anton’s a lovely bloke, but should he be working here?”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 1)

“Slough’s nightlife is incredible; it’s got two nightclubs, it’s got Chasers and New York, New York. They call it the nightclub that never sleeps. That closes at one. There was, oh my god, a themed nightclub called Henry the Eights. This was incredible. It had the Anne Bol-inn, this is true, as you went into the loo, there was a sign that said mind your head, nice, and underneath someone had written ‘And don’t get your Hampton Court.’ It’s not there any more. But not a day goes by that I don’t think about it.”
Tim (Series 1 Episode 5)

“The thing is about long term marriage is that inevitably, the sex suffers. You constantly have to find new and erotic ways of spicing things up in the bedroom.”
Gareth (Series 1 Episode 4)

“When cherries are ripe, they're ready for plucking, when girls are sixteen, they're ready-”
“Gareth!”
Gareth and David (Series 1 Episode 5)

“This is Sanj, this guy does the best Ali G impersonation, Aiiieee. I can’t do it, go on, do it.”
“I don’t, must be someone else.”
“Oh, sorry, it’s the other one-”
“The other what..... Paki?”
“Ah, that’s racist.”
Sanj and David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“Who’s been thinking of leaving?”
“I have.”
“Well that's just stupid, you’ve got a job here for life.”
“Yeah, actually I don’t want to spend my life answering phones in some crappy sub-branch paper merchants.”
“Dawn, work hard enough, and you could be answering those phones in head office, or a better paper merchants.”
Tim, Dawn and Gareth (Series 1 Episode 4)

“What, you got a problem with Ricky?”
“No no no, sleep with everyone in the office, he’s not even a permanent member of staff. I’d have preferred it if you’d slept with Gareth.”
"Wouldn’t happen.”
“Oh why, ‘cos he didn't go to university?”
“No, ‘cos he's a little weasel-faced arse.”
“Ah, you could do worse than Gareth, he hasn't missed one day, and don’t call my second in command an arse-faced weasel-”
“A weasel-faced arse.”
“Same thing.”
“Well no it’s not. Would you rather have a face like an arse or a face like a weasel?”
“Weasel probably”
Donna, David and Gareth (Series 1 Episode 5)

“When people say to me: would you rather be thought of as a funny man or a great boss? My answer’s always the same, to me, they’re not mutually exclusive.”
David (Series 1 Episode 2)

“Boring isn’t it? Just staying in, watching Peak Practice with your life.”
“mmm, yeah.”
“Not for me. I like it.”
“Yeah, I just stayed in, had a big wank”
Keith and Tim (Series 1 Episode 5)

“You upset? about Lee is it? Hey don’t worry, right, ‘cos you know monkey Alan in the warehouse, he says he fancies you, even if no-one else does.”
“Can’t say anything when they’re like that.”
“No, you can’t, I was doing OK.”
Gareth and Tim (Series 1 Episode 4)

Brent whilst showing how easy it is to find porn on the internet:
“ ‘Dutch girls must be punished for having big boobs.’ Now you do not punish someone, Dutch or otherwise for having big boobs.”
“If anything they should be rewarded.”
“They should be equal.”
“Women are equal.”
“I’ve always said that.”
David and Gareth (Series 1 Episode 2)

“So the only reason you’ve been talking to me is ‘cos you want to shag me?”
“yeah, and from behind ‘cos you're breath stinks of onions and I didn’t tell you that did I?!”
“Wahey, one up the bum, no harm done.”
“No, not up the arse.”
Woman in nightclub, David and Finchy (Series 1 Episode 5)

“What you in so early for? Shit the bed?”
“Ha! No. Haven’t done that for weeks.”
Joan and Tim (Series 1 Episode 3)

“To be honest I think you’re mad to let me and Finchy on the bleedin telly. We’re like Morecambe and Wise when we’re together. No, not Morecambe and Wise, because there’s no straight man, there’s no dead wood. I’m more sort of character based, and he’s more of a gag man. I do gags as well.”
David (Series 1 Episode 3)

“I’ve created an atmosphere where I’m a friend first, boss second. Probably entertainer third.”
David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“In this room, I have special-”
“Needs?”
“No, I am a special-”
“Needs child?”
“No. And that’s not even funny.”
Tim and Gareth (Series 1 Episode 2)

“We’re both good in our own fields. I’m sure Texas couldn’t run and manage a successful paper merchants. I couldn’t do what-, well, I could do what they do, and I think they knew that, even back then. Probably what spurred them on.”
David (Series 1 Episode 4)

“You’re such a sad little man.”
“Am I?”
Dawn and David (Series 1 Episode 1)

“If you’re so clever, what am I thinking now?”
“You’re thinking how can I kill a tiger armed only with a biro.”
“No.”
“You’re thinking if I crash land in a jungle will I be able to eat my own shoes.”
“No. And you can’t”
“What are you thinking Gareth?”
“I was just wondering whether will there ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.”
Gareth and Tim (Series 1 Episode 5)

Brent talking about Donna:
“Her dad’s not only a copper, but he’s a bloody big bugger isn’t he? So hands off.”
“I’ve got something she could take down in evidence!”
“Oh, don’t worry about this lot.”
“Do you wanna receive some swollen goods?”
“I wouldn’t mind escaping up her tunnel!”
“Get out. Get out, I mean it.”
David and some employees (Series 1 Episode 2)

“This is the poem Slough, by Sir John Betjemen, probably never been here in his life. ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, it isn’t fit for humans now.’ Right, I don’t think you solve town planning problems by dropping bombs all over the place, he’s embarrassed himself there. Next ‘In labour saving homes with care, their wives frizz out peroxide hair, and dry it in synthetic air, and paint their nails-’ they wanna look nice, what’s the matter, doesn’t he like girls? ‘And talks of sports and makes of cars, and various bogus Tudor bars, and daren’t look up and see the stars, but belch instead.’ What's he on about? What, has he never burped? ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, to get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now, the earth exhales-’ He’s the only cabbage round here. And they made him a night of the realm. Overrated.”
David (Series 1 Episode 5)
The full poem ‘Slough’ can be found on the History page

“You grow up, you work half a century, you get a golden handshake, you rest a couple of years and you’re dead. And the only thing that makes that crazy ride worthwhile is ‘Did I enjoy it? What did I learn? What was the point?’ That’s where I come in. You’ve seen how I react to people, make them feel good, make them think that anything’s possible. If I make them laugh along the way, sue me. And I don’t do it so they turn round and go ‘Thankyou David for the opportunity, thankyou for the wisdom, thankyou for the laughs.’ I do it so, one day, someone will go ‘There goes David Brent. I must remember to thank him.’”
David (Series 1 Episode 6)