Top 100 Richard Osman Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I’m involved about as much as I want to be with the Thursday Murder Club. If they can plant cocaine in someone’s cistern, I don’t want to think about what they’d do with my love life.”

— Richard Osman

2. “The weather forecasters,” continues Elizabeth, “and here that’s me and Ibrahim – we always have our fingers in the air, trying to feel which way the wind is blowing. We never want to be surprised or caught out.”

— Richard Osman

3. “There is another dating app for gay men called Grindr. Perhaps it’s for gay women too? I don’t know, I didn’t ask. Would they use the same one? That would be nice.”

— Richard Osman

4. “It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.”

— Richard Osman

5. “It was the perfect trip, and as far as Stephen was concerned, the whole weekend was one magical accident. And that’s because he is the weather, and I am the weather forecaster. He believes in fate, while I am fate.”

— Richard Osman

6. “I am not a vegan and have no intention of ever becoming one, but I still feel like it’s something that should be encouraged. I read that if mankind doesn’t stop eating meat, there will be mass starvation by 2050. With respect, I am nearly eighty, and so this won’t be my problem, but I do hope they sort it out.”

— Richard Osman

7. “You can’t expect favours without being asked to repay them. So what was it to be?”

— Richard Osman

8. “It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?” says Viktor. “It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.”

— Richard Osman

9. “And if one is never lost in life, then clearly one has never traveled anywhere interesting.”

— Richard Osman

10. “What is it about Christmas? Everything that’s wrong seems worse, and everything that’s right seems better.”

— Richard Osman

11. “What if pretending to enjoy life is the same as actually enjoying it? He has been smiling from the moment Patrice arrived, so perhaps there was something in it.”

— Richard Osman

12. “If you are disappointed with your face, eventually it shows.”

— Richard Osman

13. “It was a community, and in Ibrahim’s opinion that was how human beings were designed to live. At Coopers Chase, anytime you wanted to be alone, you would simply close your front door, and anytime you wanted to be with people, you would open it up again. If there was a better recipe for happiness than that, then Ibrahim was yet to hear it.”

— Richard Osman

14. “Everyone who dies is alive. We call people “dead” because we need a word for it, but “dead” just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.”

— Richard Osman

15. “Who killed Tony Curran though? Ventham. Typical Blairite.”

— Richard Osman

16. “We are all gone in the blink of an eye, and there is nothing to do but live while you’re waiting.”

— Richard Osman

17. “I’m afraid I don’t know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week. I’m going to assume that it doesn’t refer to the Warsaw Transit Facility, as that was shut down in 1981 when the Russians came sniffing.”

— Richard Osman

18. “No kneeling for him these days, though, arthritis and Catholicism being an uneasy mix.”

— Richard Osman

19. “You must die before your children, of course, because you have taught them to live without you. But not your dog.”

— Richard Osman

20. “Whatever they say about time healing, some things in life just break and can never be fixed.”

— Richard Osman

21. “He eats salmon and broccoli now. He eats so much broccoli he can spell it without looking it up.”

— Richard Osman

22. “If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.”

— Richard Osman

23. “It is fine to say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ It is admirable. But it no longer applies when you’re eighty. When you are eighty, whatever doesn’t kill you just ushers you through the next door, and the next door and the next, and all of these doors lock behind you.”

— Richard Osman

24. “I volunteer because it makes me look helpful, and it gives me first dibs on the refreshments.”

— Richard Osman

25. “We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn’t fall behind. But it doesn’t, you see. Time just swirls around us. Every thing is always present. The things we’ve done, the people we’ve loved, the people we’ve hurt, they’re all still here?”

— Richard Osman

26. “Donna smiles again. Her eyes have remained shut. This is peaceful, this is helping. Just saying things out loud. Was this therapy? It didn’t feel like it. It just felt like finally telling somebody the truth.”

— Richard Osman

27. “It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim might come, your final walk, your final kiss?”

— Richard Osman

28. “They say a man who desires revenge should dig two graves, and this is surely right.”

— Richard Osman

29. “They don’t need anything in return other than her happiness and her friendship. They just like her. It has taken Elizabeth a long time to accept the truth of that.”

— Richard Osman

30. “I keep Gerry in a tight little ball just for me. I think if I let him loose here, it would overwhelm me, and I worry he might just blow away.”

— Richard Osman

31. “I would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting?”

— Richard Osman

32. “Some people love their children more than they love their partner,’ says Ibrahim, ’and some people love their partner more than their children. And no one can ever admit to either thing.”

— Richard Osman

33. “I am glad I had a daughter instead of a son, though. At least I see her.”

— Richard Osman

34. “If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.”

— Richard Osman

35. “Joyce doesn’t take her seriously, Ibrahim doesn’t take her seriously, Ron doesn’t take her seriously. They respect her, she thinks, they know they can rely on her, they take care of her – shudder – but they refuse to take her seriously. Who knew that was the secret all along?”

— Richard Osman

36. “More women are murdering people these days,” says Joyce. “If you ignore the context, it is a real sign of progress.”

— Richard Osman

37. “I’m sure,” says Elizabeth. “If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.”

— Richard Osman

38. “I think that if I have a special skill, it is that I am often overlooked. Is that the word? Underestimated, perhaps?”

— Richard Osman

39. “Was he a content man, doing the things he liked alone? Or was he a lonely man making the best out of what he had? Alone, or lonely? This question cropped up so often these days, Chris could no longer be confident of his answer. Though if he was a betting man, his money would be on lonely.”

— Richard Osman

40. “There are scars, yes, but that at least means the bleeding has stopped.”

— Richard Osman

41. “I’m afraid I don’t know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week.”

— Richard Osman

42. “Well, in that case you go right ahead. It needs a tidy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That will be fun for Stephen, a team of goons in the flat at the dead of night. He’s a fine host.”

— Richard Osman

43. “I remember dabbing at my mouth before I answered, like you see on television sometimes. It makes you look clever, try it.”

— Richard Osman

44. “There comes a time when progress is only for other people.”

— Richard Osman

45. “Donna has always been headstrong, always acted quickly and decisively. Which is a fine quality when you are right, but a liability when you are wrong. It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.”

— Richard Osman

46. “Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.”

— Richard Osman

47. “No animal is better than any other animal. We are all just a collection of atoms smashed together. Even people. Even trees.”

— Richard Osman

48. “I would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting? Not wroth the risk, thank you. My daughter, Joanna, has a therapist, although you’d be hard-pressed to know why if you saw the size of her house.”

— Richard Osman

49. “Always look where the action isn’t, because that’s where the action is.”

— Richard Osman

50. “Everything is about death, you see.’ ‘Well, recently, yes,’ agrees Joyce. ‘But surely not everything? That seems a bit much?’ ‘In essence,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Our existence only makes sense because of it; it provides meaning to our narrative. Our direction of travel is always towards it. Our behaviour is either because we fear it, or because we choose to deny it. We could drive past this spot once a year, every year, and neither the horse nor ourselves would get younger. Everything is death.”

— Richard Osman