Absolute Power (radio)/Quotes

From the television series:

Alan: I put it all down to drink, drugs and the stress of the job.
Charles: Well you mention that unholy trinity to the press and your career will be over sooner than Gemini's.
Alan: Who?

Charles: There is nothing more nauseating to the common working schmuck than some pampered millionaire celebrity banging on about how hard life is at the top.

Alan: But it's the truth!

Charles: How many times do I have to tell you, nobody gives a shit about the truth? That's why you employ me.

Cat: He has charm.
Jamie: Of course he does, he's gay.
Alison: He's not gay.
Jamie: Punt-wise, Reza definitely poles from the Cambridge end.

Charles(very cheerfully): I tell you what. Why don't you both fuck off?

From the radio series:

("Prison Reform")

Charles: Let me say this as a man of unflinching, principled consistency: What's in it for me?
Archie: I'm sorry?
Charles: Well, it's all very well being one of the people of the night, your existence officially denied ... but it does get a bit lonely.
Archie:What are we talking?
Charles: A knighthood.
Archie: What?
Charles: Sir Charles Prentiss.
Archie: So you'll drop all this nonsense about prison reform if we give knighthoods to you and Martin?
Charles: Who said anything about Martin?

Charles: Archie, if you're going to have principles in this life, it is essential that they have a certain infinite flexibility.

Gayle: And not the tie with the bunny rabbits, even if his children did give it to him. You cannot order a riot squad to enter a prison wearing a tie with bunny rabbits.

("Mayor of London")

Sandy: No, but at least you've learned something.
Martin: And what might that be?
Sandy: That there are even worse crooks and liars in the world than Prentiss McCabe.
Charles: Get out, Sandy.

("Radio 3")

Charles: Kcuf O, backwards!

("Big Brother")

Charles: D'you know, I actually sat and watched a tape of Big... Thingy, an entire hour of it. It's like a publicity video for Madame Tussauds made by Andy Warhol. Nothing happens at all. Nothing! And yet every time that little excrescence steps outside the front door, she's besieged! 'Can I have your autograph?' 'Will you marry me?' 'Show us your bum!' Martin, I simply do not understand the country we live in. I'm a total stranger!

("Healthy Eating")

Charles: You do love your little joke, don't you? Martin, you are brilliant, but fundamentally unsound.
Martin: Thus credulous fools are caught.
Charles: Don't you quote bloody Shakespeare at me. Two can play at that game, my dear! I will do such things, I know not what yet they are, but they will be the terrors of the earth!

Martin (laughing): Will you. Righty-ho.