"Trying is the first step on the road to failure".

Jack Donaghy's immortal words*
Said to Tina Fey after she went off with Carrie Fisher

when I accidently knocked the iron off the ironing board during a particularly steamy session (of ironing!). My first reaction was to catch the iron (a brand new Phillips Mistral 2100 TDi cabriolet) before it hit the deck. However, I withdrew my hands at the last minute and let it fall having realised the potential for serious hand melt. So,

'Never catch a falling iron'.

'Those are my principles and if you don't like them, well I have others'.

and for when playing games with small children or bad losers, 'Let the Wookie win'

"When the rooster crows on the dungheap, the weather changes or it stays the same."

or in it`s original form

"Wenn der Hahn kräht auf dem Mist, dann ändert sich das Wetter, oder es bleibt wie es ist."

Vry useful against superstitious nonsense

I have no other

"Children are our future. Unless we stop them now"

"I just wish once someone would call me "Sir" without adding, "You're making a scene."

"Stupidity got us into this mess, and stupidity will get us out"

"Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is like another nail"

"Kids are great. You can teach them to hate what you hate and, with the Internet and all, they practically raise themselves."

and one from the son

Lisa: It's one of those campy '70s throwbacks that appeals to Generation X'ers.
Bart: We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little!

"Don't throw away your old shoes until you have got new ones"

He was talking about either Liverpool selling Xabi Alonso, or Real Madrid selling Wesley Sniejder. Whichever one it was, he's right.

Apparently it's an old Dutch proverb

A colleague of the GGH was having a few jars of ale in a hostelry with some pals when two irksome yoofs started 'kicking off', chucking beer over eachother, swearing loudly, and insulting regulars.
The inexperienced new landlord was floundering, so GGH's pal Bill, an extremely portly fellow, who had in his time spent some years At Her Majesty's Pleasure and so therefore could hold his own in a fist/face impact scenario, asked the yoofs politely to "Knock it off, lads, please."
The Cornish Pastie-faced leader walked up to Bill, and responded with the less than diplomatic phrase: "Fuck off Grandad, you fucking fat bastard," while simultaneously launching a right hook to Bill's midriff, while his mate stood by laughing, obviously expecting the flabby old fellow to double up in pain and crumple to the floor.
Bill just shook his head sadly, grabbed both oiks by their ears, and threw them out of the pub, with the sage advice: "Never punch a fat man in the stomach."
I have always remembered not to do this.

trust a man in a blazer

Especially in the Gents.

Thank you, Spike Milligan.

with big flappy hands like a man - Alan Partridge