“That night, at God knows what hour, Bill phoned me up and shouted, ‘Ozzy, I think myhouse is haunted!’‘Sell tickets then,’ I told him, and put the phone down.”

“‘Ozzy, is it true you got busted for pissing on the Alamo?’ he asked me.‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘It’s true.’‘Shit, man,’ he said. ‘We piss on it every night on our way home.’”

“I remember one time, back in the day, I was at his [Bill Ward] house and he said, ‘Oh, ’ello Ozzy. You’ll never guess what? I’ve just come out of a coma.’‘What d’you mean, a coma? That’s one stage removed from being dead. You know that, don’t you, Bill?’‘All I know is I went to bed on Friday, and now it’s Tuesday, and I only just woke up. That’s a coma, isn’t it?’‘No, that’s taking too many drugs and drinking too much cider and sleeping for three days in a row, you d**k.’”

“‘And what about a [band] name?’ said Tony [Iommi]. The three of us looked at each other.‘We should all take a couple of days to think about it,’ I said. ‘I dunno about you two, but I’ve got a special place where I go to get ideas for important stuff like this. It’s never failed me yet.’Forty-eight hours later I blurted out: ‘I’ve got it!’‘Must have been that dodgy bird you poked the other night,’ said Geezer. ‘Has your whelk turned green yet?’ Tony and Bill snickered into their plates of egg and chips. We were sitting in a greasy spoon caff in Aston. So far, everyone was getting along famously.‘Very funny, Geezer,’ I said, waving an eggy fork at him. ‘I mean the name for our band.’The snickering died down.‘Go on then,’ said Tony [Iommi].‘Well, I was on the shitter last night, and...'‘That’s your special place?’ spluttered Bill, blobs of mushed-up egg and HP sauce flying out of his mouth.‘Where the f**k did you think it was, Bill?’ I said. ‘The hanging gardens of f**king Babylon?”

“After a real snake ended up on stage one night, it was well and truly pissed off about being on stage with Ozzy Osbourne, that snake was.”

“‘Someone’s gonna die before this is over,’ I said to Doc McGhee. [...]‘I don’t think someone’s gonna die, Ozzy. I think we’re all gonna die.’”

“One day Sharon got a call from Greta Van Susteren, one of the anchors at Fox News.‘I was wondering if you and Ozzy wanted to have dinner next week with the President of the United States,’ she said.‘Is he in trouble again?’ asked Sharon.Greta laughed. ‘Not that I know of, no.’‘Thank God for that.’‘Will you come?’‘Of course we will. It would be an honour.’When Sharon told me, I couldn’t believe it. I always thought I’d be on a ‘Wanted’ poster on the Oval Office wall, not invited over for tea.”