Top 160 Richard Osman Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Ever so ambitious, but they only use ‘ambitious’ as a criticism about women, don’t they?”

— Richard Osman

102. “Elizabeth looks to Donna like the sort of teacher who terrifies you all year but then gives you a grade A and cries when you leave.”

— Richard Osman

103. “Don’t get me wrong – I know what an engineer is, and I know what chemicals are, but I can’t join the dots.”

— Richard Osman

104. “The sudden thought that explains things, that shines a light where there once was darkness. The closest she can come to describing it is that inspiration strikes when two completely different thoughts come together, and they suddenly make sense of each other.”

— Richard Osman

105. “You may not have recognized me,’ says Max. This, he has learnt, is politer than ‘Don’t you know who I am?”

— Richard Osman

106. “Jealousy? I don’t think jealousy is the right word, says Pauline. They were both strong women and in those days people liked to make strong women compete with each other, like you couldn’t have two strong women in the same room at the same time. The world would explode.”

— Richard Osman

107. “Do you know how to pick loc–’ Rosie’s question is interrupted by Amy taking a large rock and smashing one of Scroggie’s back windows. ‘Ah, I see you do.”

— Richard Osman

108. “They didn’t speak, because there was too much to say.”

— Richard Osman

109. “Would Ron like a team of officers rooting through his underwear?” “I don’t think anyone would like that,” says Ibrahim. “Least of all the officers.”

— Richard Osman

110. “How will life go on now? How is that possible? She hears a car on a distant road. Why on earth is anybody driving? Where is there to go now? Why is the clock in the hall still ticking? Doesn’t it know it stopped days ago?”

— Richard Osman

111. “What was he thinking? That was the one question she knew not to ask a man. They were almost always thinking nothing at all, so were thrown by the question, and felt compelled to make something up.”

— Richard Osman

112. “It’s not every daughter-in-law who will high-five you when you’ve shot a drug dealer in a Coldplay T-shirt, is it?”

— Richard Osman

113. “The life she had with Stephen will always mean more to her than the life she will now have going forward. She will spend more time there, in that past, she knows that. And, as the world races forward, she will fall further and further back.”

— Richard Osman

114. “Our memories are no less real than whatever moment in which we happen to be living.”

— Richard Osman

115. “We are all tiny insignificant blinks in history, in a world that couldn’t care a hoot if we live or die. You think whoever made this box six thousand years ago cares if we do Pilates and eat our five-a-day?”

— Richard Osman

116. “Funny to think of the year 2000 as ancient history.”

— Richard Osman

117. “There are friendships forged in fire, which end up disappearing like smoke, and other casual, nodding friendships, which will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

— Richard Osman

118. “After writing an email, a text, anything really, you can simply run the whole thing through ChatGPT and it instantly deletes your personality. It flattens you out, irons your creases, washes you away, quirk by quirk, until you disappear.”

— Richard Osman

119. “Elizabeth, you think perhaps it’s a sign of my gratitude that I’m standing on the steps of the police station about to help two old ladies shine an infra-red light at a crisp packet?”

— Richard Osman

120. “Elizabeth sits completely still, and waits. It can take a while, but, if you are still long enough, they come to you. Fitful babies, zooming kittens, men with secrets. With nothing to bounce off, their nervous energy eventually seems ridiculous to them, and across they trot.”

— Richard Osman

121. “I’ve always found that shirts sort of iron themselves while you’re wearing them.”

— Richard Osman

122. “No regrets. We live our lives forwards, not backwards. So always make the best of what’s in front of you.”

— Richard Osman

123. “Steve stops by the window of the estate agent and peers through the glass. If he was moving to the village today, he wouldn’t be able to afford it. The only way anyone can afford to buy a house these days is to have bought it fifteen years ago.”

— Richard Osman

124. “That’s what happens when you get older. Too many funerals, not enough weddings.”

— Richard Osman

125. “Elizabeth taps her head. “My palace has many rooms. Some are dustier than others.”

— Richard Osman

126. “Mankind finds futility very hard to stomach. People find all sorts of things to give their brief lives meaning. Religion, football, astrology, social media. Valiant efforts all, but everyone knows, deep, deep down, that life is both a random occurrence and a losing battle. None of us will be remembered. These days will all be covered, in time, by the sands.”

— Richard Osman

127. “It’s South Carolina,” says Carlos. “Sweating’s what we do.”

— Richard Osman

128. “With some men you spend most of your life just nodding in agreement.”

— Richard Osman

129. “That’s the thing about Coopers Chase. You’d imagine it was quiet and sedate, like a village pond on a summer’s day. But in truth it never stops moving, it’s always in motion. And that motion is ageing, and death, and love, and grief, and final snatched moments and opportunities grasped. The urgency of old age. There’s nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death.”

— Richard Osman

130. “Perhaps I’ll kill her too?” says Davey. “You can’t,” says Bogdan. “Only God can kill Elizabeth.” “And even he’d think twice,” says Ron.”

— Richard Osman

131. “Love? Try Googling it. There aren’t any answers.”

— Richard Osman

132. “And, despite his assiduous preparation, it had taken him by surprise. You can think something often enough, but you will never be prepared for your heart disintegrating.”

— Richard Osman

133. “Can I say, by the way, that Poppy had put a Post-it note on the front of the file, and had put a little kiss and a smiley face on that Post-it note? And I just wonder if that’s really the sort of thing a murderer would do?”

— Richard Osman

134. “If you have any sort of personality, someone will eventually want to kill you.”

— Richard Osman

135. “Time for me to turn in now. I know it sounds silly, but I feel less alone when I write. So thank you for keeping me company, whoever you might be.”

— Richard Osman

136. “We might see a million white swans, and yet we are not able to say that all swans are white. Yet we see just one black swan, and we can say with absolute certainty that not all swans are white.”

— Richard Osman

137. “Joyce turns her face up to the sun and closes her eyes. ‘Well, isn’t this lovely, Ron? I never knew I liked beer. Imagine if I’d died at seventy? I never would have known.”

— Richard Osman

138. “And Stephen had still chosen her? Stephen had made her, that was the truth. Had glued her together. And here she lies. Unmade. Unglued.”

— Richard Osman

139. “Stephen shrugs. “We all go at some point, my Viking friend. I’d rather she wasn’t killed by a cowardly Swede, but best to bow out doing something decent. I’m sure I’d miss her, but someone else would turn up soon enough. Beautiful spies everywhere you look. Falling out of trees.”

— Richard Osman

140. “How many more autumns for Elizabeth? How many more years of slipping on a pair of comfortable boots and walking through the leaves? One day, spring will come without her. The daffodils will always come up by the lake, but you won’t always be there to see them. So it goes; enjoy them while you can.”

— Richard Osman

141. “When old friends die, you’re furious, because you’ve never quite finished what you were saying to them.”

— Richard Osman

142. “Elizabeth can fool herself no more, can keep Stephen to herself no longer. The day she knew must arrive was here. She has been losing him, a paragraph at a time, but the chapter is done and the book is close to its end.”

— Richard Osman

143. “If you hit women, you hit women.”

— Richard Osman

144. “The real secret was that when they looked at each other, they each thought they had the better deal. But, however much life teaches you that nothing lasts, it is still a shock when it disappears. When the man you love with every fiber starts returning to the stars, an atom at a time.”

— Richard Osman

145. “I never take offense,” says Tony. “Saved me a lot of time over the years.”

— Richard Osman

146. “They say that time softens the pain, but that’s a fairy tale. Who would ever love again if anyone actually told the truth? I’m afraid there are some days when I could still rip out my own heart and weep myself hollow for Gerry. Some days? Every day.”

— Richard Osman

147. “Everyone is vulnerable. For some people, for Steve, it comes out as fear, avoiding situations where the vulnerability is exposed. For others, for an awful lot of people these days, vulnerability comes out as anger, pushing away anything that feels like it might pierce their shell. Steve watches.”

— Richard Osman

148. “Save your good luck for big things, and your bad luck for small things.”

— Richard Osman

149. “The first trip I ever went on with Stephen was to Venice. He wanted to look at the art and the churches for a weekend, and I wanted to look at him for a weekend.’ ‘That’s romantic,’ says Joyce. ‘Looking at a man you love isn’t romantic, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s just the sensible thing to do. Like watching a television programme you like.”

— Richard Osman

150. “I know many people enjoy your books, and surely they can’t all be wrong?”

— Richard Osman