Quotes of the Year - They said what in 2009?

Dec 31 2009 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

JANUARY

"Another beautiful day in Florida. Amazing how much nicer it is to wake up with the sun streaming in. Don't mean to rub it in." - Jonathan Ross, during his suspension from the BBC

"I find racist jokes funnier now than I did 30 years ago because it's so socially unacceptable." - Broadcaster and commentator Rod Liddle

"Like wooden blocks, I'm telling you." - Singer Cheryl Cole, wife of football star Ashley Cole, describes "some" of her fellow Wags

"Shakespeare has way too many lines. My ideal theatre piece is about 40 minutes long with no interval." - 007 actor Daniel Craig

"When George Bush finally leaves the White House, the satire industry will briefly join the rest of the economy in recession. It will certainly be the end of an era." - Rory Bremner

"I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight." - Actor Brian Blessed

"You feel out of touch with your own head." - Actress Kate Winslet, who does not like wearing wigs

FEB

"Yesterday, I was considered soft porn, but today I am art." - Pamela Anderson of Baywatch fame.

"Just as I love women, I love gay men. I always say it: inside me there is a gay man who wants to come out." - Victoria Beckham

"OK. This is now mad. I am stuck in a lift on the 26th floor of Centre Point. Hell's teeth. We could be here for hours. Arse, poo and widdle." - Actor Stephen Fry appeals for help on website Twitter while in this predicament

"It's not fashionable but I like to spit out of the window of a moving train." - Writer Paul Theroux

"A good rule to remember for life is that when it comes to plastic surgery and sushi, never be attracted by a bargain." - Graham Norton

"Not all politicians are bonkers, but most of them are." - William Hague, shadow foreign secretary

MARCH

"I am the only woman who has not been beheaded for leaving the Royal Family." - The Duchess of York

"There is probably an innate masochism in a lot of women that ends up disappointed if men don't ill-treat them." - Best-selling writer Fay Weldon

"Delia Smith's food is lovely. But she is the most boring person in the world." - Top chef Antonio Carluccio

"I don't think it's right for me." - Alan Whicker on death

"It's like cuddling a piece of gristle." - Guy Ritchie's description of hugging his ex-wife, Madonna

"Thanks to the tabloid campaigns I have many death threats and I was very pleased to get another one the other day." - Former Labour MP Tony Benn

APRIL

"I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space." - Actor Brian Blessed

"My husband says my toes are like Wall's cocktail sausages. He feels peckish whenever he sees them." - Amanda Holden

"Do I suffer for my art? Well, I get a lot of flatulence when I'm nervous." - Actor Martin Clunes

"I've got a lot of back-up because my father was a Catholic, my mother was a Protestant, I was educated by Jews and I'm married to a Muslim. So I won't lose out on a technicality." - Sir Michael Caine, when asked if he thought there was life after death

"It will be great to play a short, fat sweaty loser for a change." - Ricky Gervais on a new film role

"Don't knit while you are wearing a black suit. You look like you've been sheep wrestling." - TV presenter Penny Smith

MAY

"I would put forward a modest proposition that we were very much better governed by Henry VIII than we are by King Gordon." - TV historian David Starkey takes a swipe at the Prime Minister

"I don't do close-ups any more. I am better looking from the waist downwards." - TV presenter Bruce Forsyth

"I don't think there is any place in football for drinking. I have said on several occasions to players: You don't put diesel in a Ferrari." - Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham Hotspur

"I don't like getting old. It's a bore. You are just beginning to get the hang of life - and then your body starts letting you down." - Veteran actress Sylvia Syms

"Esther Rantzen, like me, is an egomaniac of the highest order." - TV's Janet Street-Porter

"It is amazing where you can get with a bus pass these days." - Sir Ranulph Fiennes, 65, after conquering Everest

JUNE

"The basic problem is that we are a bunch of barbarians really." - Jeremy Paxman on the British public

"Man has survived and prospered for more than 150,000 years on this planet without the help of use-by dates." - TV cook Clarissa Dickson Wright who regards them as "just a marketing scam"

"I don't want to give a cool appraisal of Jeremy Irons. I just want to boil him in oil." - Lynn Barber, described as "the rottweiler of journalism", recalls one of her hatchet jobs

"I am sure vegetarians must also account for a lot of gases. Look how many beans they eat." - Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson attacks Sir Paul McCartney's Meat-Free Mondays campaign

"I do get very angry at things. My wife has to count to ten because if she gets annoyed at me being annoyed, then I get annoyed at her being annoyed at me being annoyed." - Actor Simon Pegg

"I'm world-famous in West Bromwich." - Entertainer Frank Skinner