Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan, known as Spike, was a comedian, writer and musician. He was of Irish descent, but spent most of his childhood in India and lived most of his later life in England, moving to Australia after retirement. He is famous for his work in The Goon Show, children's poetry and a series of comical autobiographical novels about his experiences serving in the British Army in WWII. Spike Milligan suffered from bipolar disorder, which led to depression and frequent breakdowns, but he will be remembered as a comic genius. His tombstone reads 'I told you I was ill' in Gaelic.
“My sister Laura's bigger than meAnd lifts me up quite easily.I can't lift her, I've tried and tried;She must have something heavy inside.”
“Waiting for the operation, there was a gentle tap on the door. In came a strapping nurse. 'Good morning', she shrilled, whipped back the bedclothes, upped with his nightshirt, grabbed his willy, lathered furiously around it till it looked like the Eddystone Lighthouse in a storm, then shaved the whole area till it looked like an oven-ready chicken.'Excuse me, nurse', said Looney, 'why did you knock?”
“Author, author, did you write these legs?( The Milligan- Puckoon”
“General: Where are you from?Spike: London.General: Which part?Spike: ... Well, all of me.”
“A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.”
“My father was my greatest inspiration. He was a lunatic.”
“With a roof over his head he had ceased to work, living off his [war] pension and his wits, both hopelessly inadequate.”
“Life is a long agonized illness only curable by death.”
“R.I.P.Tom Conlon O'Rourke.Not Dead, just Sleeping.”
“The clock in the church tower said 4.32, as it had done for three hundred years. It was right once a day and that was better than no clock at all.”
“Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.”
“Come, come, come? I'm not asking for hundreds of pounds, just a little to start with. Will someone say ten shillings?' 'I can say it, Father' said Milligan, 'but I haven't got it.' 'I've got it,' thought Dr Goldstein, 'but I'm not going to say it.”
“The width of neck and shoulder suggested a rugby player, the broken nose confirmed it. Which shows just how wrong you can be as he never played the game in his life.”
“A bird in The Strand is worth two in Shepherds Bush”
“Pakistani Dalek: Put him in the cur-ry”
“A family man from SiberiaAs a father was very inferiorBut one operationRevised the situationAnd now he's Mother Superior”
“(On his gravestone): "I told you I was ill".”
“On the Ning Nang NongWhere the Cows go Bong!And the Monkeys all say Boo!Theres a Nang Nong NingWhere the trees go Ping!And the tea pots Jibber Jabber JooOn the Nong Ning NangAll the Mice go Clang!And you just cant catch em when they do!So its Ning Nang Nong!Cows go Bong!Nong Nang Ning!Trees go Ping!Nong Ning Nang!The mice go Clang!What a noisy place to belong,Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!”
“I have a body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge.”
“Said Hamlet to Ophelia,I'll draw a sketch of thee.What kind of pencil shall I use?2B or not 2B?”
“After Puckoon I swore I'd never write another book. This is it”
“The die was cast. It was a proud day for the Milligan family as I was taken from the house. "I'm too young to go," I screamed as Military Policemen dragged me from my pram, clutching a dummy. At Victoria Station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked "This is your enemy." I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train. At 4.30, June 2nd, 1940, on a summer's day all mare's tails and blue sky we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. It wasn't easy. The train didn't stop there.”
“I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.”
“What is a Bongaloo, Daddy?" A Bongaloo, Son," said I, Is a tall bag of cheese Plus a Chinaman's knees And the leg of a nanny goat's eye”
“My father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic. ”
“Money can't buy you friends, but you do get a better class of enemy. ”
“Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.”
“All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.”