Frankie Boyle > Quotes

“For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person. (on Margaret Thatcher)”
― Frankie Boyle

“Welcome to Glasgow - the city where we punch people who are on fire.”
― Frankie Boyle

“I don't read newspapers anymore — I just lie to myself and cut out the middleman.”
― Frankie Boyle

“I was once asked to pick a couple of records for an interview I was doing on Radio 2. I picked one by Will Oldham and one by Joanna Newsom. Someone on the production phoned me to say that I couldn't have either record because they were 'too alternative' and I could just pick two from their playlist. Now, personally, I think that Radio 2's listeners would dig both Joanna Newsom and Will Oldham if they heard their records, and that the fact they don't get to hear them contributes to the cultural wasteland we live in. I told them that I'd been to see Joanna Newsom in the Albert Hall a couple of weeks before and it had been sold out. How could she be 'too alternative'?
'Alternative' and 'mainstream' aren't strictly to do with whether things are popular or minority interest. They are ideological labels. Someone like Joe Pasquale would be called 'mainstream' and regularly pops up on TV, but would play the smaller end of the touring-theatre circuit. If Joanna Newsom can sell out Albert Hall, why can't she get played on Radio 2? I would agree that it's because her work is too layered, challenging and interesting. Think about that. What you get to hear about is filtered, and not filtered to get rid of useless cunts like Joe Pasquale, but of things that might enrich your life.”
― Frankie Boyle, Work! Consume! Die!

“The Lib Dems found it very hard to decide whether they were Labour or Tory supporters, mostly because they're Lib Dem supporters. I mean had most of them agreed with one of the major parties they would probably have applied to join those parties instead of standing at the back of town halls looking disappointed.”
― Frankie Boyle, Work! Consume! Die!

“It seems amazing that the Navy SEALs managed to get inside the compound and shoot Osama so efficiently. I can only imagine they were told that the mission was to rescue a bearded British hostage and he must be brought out alive.”
― Frankie Boyle, Work! Consume! Die!

“Barack Obama will appeal to both black and white voters in America. White voters who'll think he's Tiger Woods.”
― Frankie Boyle

“There are fears that Britain could be facing a double-dip recession, or worse still, a double-dip with misery sprinkles and fuck-where's-my-job-sauce.”
― Frankie Boyle, Work! Consume! Die!

“A poll when Blair left said that 69 per cent of people reckoned Blair’s legacy would be the Iraq War. I think that ignores his real record of achievement in dismantling the Labour movement. It’s amazing to think that the huge effort he went to creating a massive cash-for-honours scandal will be overshadowed. Blair was said to be saddened that he hasn’t managed to serve for as many years as Thatcher. Instead he will have to content himself with having killed more women and children than Genghis Khan. Ironically, for a man who is so obsessed with legacy, his memory will live on longer than most politicians—as a ghost story that Iraqi mothers use to frighten their children. That said, I do think that Blair stands a good chance of success in his new role of Peace Envoy. There’s a real chance that all those different groups in the Middle East will join together to try and kill him. In six months time he could be putting an end to years of suffering as he is sacrificed on an altar in the centre of Baghdad while everyone celebrates like it’s the end of a Star Wars movie.”
― Frankie Boyle, My Shit Life So Far

“I think life is a lot different for alternative kids nowadays. Texting and the internet mean that being a Goth or something means you're part of a big social scene, it's an inclusive thing. Back then, we all just went our different ways in the afterglow,wishing each other all the best with the next ten years of bullying.”
― Frankie Boyle, My Shit Life So Far

“The debate is whether the war is legal. It has brought pain, misery and desperation to hundreds of thousands of people. Does that sound legal to you? To me it sounds like the dictionary definition of the legal profession.”
― Frankie Boyle, Work! Consume! Die!

“Bisexuals are really attracted to senior Lib Dems - as they are both a man and a great big pussy.”
― Frankie Boyle

“That said, I don’t really understand the point of the royal princes joining the army. Why send a couple of pampered party boys like Harry or William in to fight? In a war you need a ruthless, merciless killing machine, someone like Andy McNab, or Prince Philip. Prince Philip is the perfect soldier: he likes shooting things and he’s a racist. He’d kill his own daughter-in-law if he thought he could get away with it.”
― Frankie Boyle, My Shit Life So Far

“There is a force that conspires against you. It's called capitalism. It's closing your libraries so you can focus on your conspiracy shit.”
― Frankie Boyle

“(Oxbridge is a compound term formed from the words obnoxious and privilege).”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“Immediately after his re-election [Cameron] announced: “For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone.” A statement so far to the right that it conceded the political centre ground to Judge Dredd.”
― Frankie Boyle

“Our political culture is now so debased that we regularly hear ‘do gooders’ getting the blame for things. Enviromentalists trying to stop a coal-burning power plant or a new runway that will (let’s just remember) DESTROY THE EARTH are branded as our enemies, these ‘do gooders’. Like doing good is a bad thing. You read all the time in the press that ‘do gooders’ are to blame—a sweepingly derogatory term. Or even worse, the ‘so-called do gooders’. I’ve never once read that the blame was being put fairly and squarely on ‘cunts’, and let’s face it ‘cunts’ must be behind fucking things up far more things than ‘do gooders’. If it’s not ‘cunts’ then I blame those ‘so-called cunts’.”
― Frankie Boyle, My Shit Life So Far

“That’s a real thing with sectarians – they always assume that people are interested in the shite they talk.”
― Frankie Boyle, Scotland’s Jesus and My Shit Life So Far 2-in-1 Collection

“What do I look like to you? Do I look like someone you can fuck around with?’ the brown suit shrieked. I had learned over the course of the previous minute not to answer anything honestly without careful consideration. My honest answer would be that he looked like he had a skincare routine and went down on his middle-aged wife twice a week with a ferocious sense of duty that passed for love.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“Scotland hadn’t got a lot right over the years, but there is a good case for putting a knife in your sock when you go to a wedding.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“Can a computer program be conscious?’ Sophie laughed. ‘Can a submarine swim? That’s how Noam Chomsky answers that one. Whether we call it consciousness or not, it’ll effectively be the same thing.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“He brought out a book of upbeat platitudes in the wake of the financial crash that was billed as ‘the literary equivalent of a hug’, but was actually the literary equivalent of trying to fuck someone when they were depressed.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“He seems to be viewed as electable by Labour members largely because he looks like someone playing a prime minister in an old Spice Girls’ video.”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“Since being born on a sunbed, this furious boiled potato has nurtured Britain’s sense of racial grievance with the patience and care you only see in someone who truly believes that they can monetise it.”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“Left-wing liberals (like me, to be honest) are often blind to their own ideology in the same way that they perceive middle-class people speaking English as not having an accent.”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“I can only stay optimistic by staying offline. People are fine in the abstract, but it’s hard when you actually have to hear what they think.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“Toby Young has always embodied contradictions, even if simply by being interested in eugenics while looking like an unviable foetus.”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“It’s been an incredible period in our nation’s history, hasn’t it? Personally, if I had a time machine and could do it all again … I’d go back to when I was sixteen, and kill myself.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime

“Many Conservative politicians are little more than a collection of personality defects developed in an attempt to lure their father out from behind the Daily Telegraph during the six days a year they weren’t using the top bunk at school as the forced sodomy equivalent of a life raft during a shark attack”
― Frankie Boyle, The Future of British Politics

“Liberals think that most people are in the middle and agree with them. Most people can’t be in the middle, it’s statistically impossible.”
― Frankie Boyle, Meantime