The word “souvenir” has, of course, slightly extended itself in meaning until it now denotes almost anything either breakable or useless.
ALAN CORENEthnically, the Germans are Teutonic… being made up of Vandals, Gepidae, and Goths, all of whom emigrated – south from Sweden in about 500 BC.
More Alan Coren Quotes
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Enjoy your life today because yesterday had gone and tomorrow may never come.
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There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn’t all the water gush out when you get in?
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All I know of birds to this date is that sparrows are the ones that are not pigeons.
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Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a “Wirtschaftswunder,” which can be briefly translated as “The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one.”
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Being a personality is not the same thing as having a personality.
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Why they emigrated is not exactly clear, but many scholars believe it was because they saw the way Sweden was going, i.e. neutral.
ALAN COREN -
Malta is the only country in the world where the local delicacy is the bread.
ALAN COREN -
I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.
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Since both its national products, snow and chocolate, melt, the cuckoo clock was invented solely in order to give tourists something solid to remember it by.
ALAN COREN -
English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit.
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To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.
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Jacob is a German Shepherd. (I have never understood why they aren’t called German Sheepdogs. What do the Germans call shepherds?)
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Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds.
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But even today, ninety per cent of the items covered by the word are forgettable objects in which cigarettes can be left to go stale.
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The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.
ALAN COREN






