AskOxford: A Melange of Modern Quotes

August sees the launch of the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations edited by Elizabeth Knowles. So here is a selection of just a few of the new quotes this edition contains.

If I were alive in Rubens's time, I'd be celebrated as a model. Kate Moss would be used as a paint brush.
Dawn French British comedy actress, in Sunday Times 13 August 2006

I support gay marriage because I believe they have a right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.
Kinky Friedman American singer, writer, and politician, candidate for Governor of Texas, quoted on CBS News 21 August 2005

The email of the species is deadlier than the mail.
Stephen Fry English actor and writer, in The Sunday Telegraph 23 December 2001

Caring. Not the most exciting of words, is it? Almost as humble as a tool. But that is the Alchemist's Stone of human endeavour.
Dimetos (1975) by Athol Fugard South African dramatist

I'm blessed with total recall, except about where I left my umbrella.
Hubert Gregg English songwriter, broadcaster, and actor, on his knowledge of popular music, quoted in The Daily Telegraph (online edition) 31 March 2004

Playing on the frontiers of life and death.
of mountaineering
Annapurna (1952) by Maurice Herzog, French mountaineer, who in 1950 became the first person to climb Annapurna

The reason you start painting yourself... is that you are a model; a cheap model. I mean, you've always got yourself!
David Hockney British artist, in an interview with British Satellite News 11 October 2006

We have not yet found shiny, pointy things that I would call a weapon.
David Kay American official, weapons inspector in Iraq 1991-2 and 2003-4, interview with CNN Late Edition 5 October 2003

All castles had one major weakness. The enemy used to get in through the gift shop.
Peter Kay British writer, Attributed

Diets are like boyfriends–it never really works to go back to them.
Nigella Lawson British journalist and cookery writer, in Sunday Times 5 March 2006

When smashing monuments, save the pedestals–they always come in handy.
Unkempt Thoughts(1962) by Stanislaw Lec Polish writer

I never thought that playing with Plasticine would lead to such a glamorous life.
Nick Park creator of Wallace and Gromit, on arriving at the Cannes Film Festival, in Independent 13 May 2005

I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway.
Mary Malone speaking in Amber Spyglass (2000) by Philip Pullman British writer for children