quotes

"an overview of my career is usually glasses, homosexuality, watford football club, tantrums, flowers. but the music was pretty phenomenal." elton john, as quoted in the new edition of "oxford dictionary of modern quotations".

while it does seem to be a perfect summing up of the current view of elton, whereby what made him famous (the music) has taken a backseat to everything else. perhaps he deserves it for “candle in the wind”.

however it is not a quote i am going to try to remember on the off chance i can drop it into conversation to:
1] impress people with my literary learnings.
2] challenge them with a pithy pearl of wisdom.
3] stun them as i drop it like a hundred ton bon mot.

whichever way you look at it elton’s quote remains a clever summing up of his career.

most of the other quotes that have been quoted seem to be so specific to the person quoted that they are not going to be of much use to the rest of us as we trying to convince others we are smarter than we are.

a few of my favourites from the list are:

“since when was greed a criminal offence?” – conrad black, author and very greedy man.

“the email of the species is deadlier than the mail.” – stephen fry, demonstrating that a useful element of the “quote” is that it can be recycled into a new quote.

“diets are like boyfriends - it never really works to go back to them.” – nigella lawson, she cooks things and looks sort of sexy and has now created the concept of diet sluts and with it diet porn.

“football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the germans win.” – gary lineker, footballer, commentator and seller of crisps.

sadly none of them come close to the, almost, perfection of one of my favourite quotes: “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke…”

one person who should never make it into the oxford dictionary of modern quotations is richard littlejohn. a man who is neither clever or funny. go here and wince.