96 Quotes by Mark Forsyth

Monty Python is, for reasons best known to nobody, rather popular with computer programmers. There’s even a programming language called Python, based on their sketches.

Now some people will tell you that great writing cannot be learnt. Such people should be hit repeatedly on the nose until they promise not to talk nonsense any more.

We usually think of beavers as sweet little creatures who build dams, but that’s not how a constipated Renaissance man would view them; a constipated Renaissance man would view them as his relief and his cure. You see, the beaver has two sacs in his groin that contain a noxious and utterly disgusting oil that acts as a very effective laxative. This very valuable liquid was known as castor oil. The.

Sausages may taste lovely, but it’s usually best not to ask what’s actually in them. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was a sausage-maker who disposed of the body.

The importance of English word order is also the reason that the idea that you can’t end a sentence with a preposition is utter hogwash. In fact, it would be utter hogwash anyway, and anyone who claims that you can’t end a sentence with up, should be told to shut. It is, as Shakespeare put it, such stuff as dreams are made on, but it’s one of those silly English beliefs that flesh is heir to.

So Shakespeare stole; but he did wonderful things with his plunder. He’s like somebody who nicks your old socks and then darns them.

Despite what astronomers would have you believe, most of the stars were created not by energy cooling into matter, but by Zeus. Zeus.

Angry letters of complaint, redundancy notices and ransom notes will, if written in careful hypotaxis, sound as reasonable, measured and genial as a good dose of rough Enlightenment pornography.

Most people can improvise in unrhymed dactyls for hours. It’s just that you lose all your friends if you do.