Quotes by David Brent 1

"I don't give shitty jobs. If a good man comes to me and says, 'Thank you, David, for the opportunity and continued support in the work-related arena, but I've done that, I wanna better myself, I want to move on', then I can make that dream come true too, a.k.a, for you."

"People say I'm the best boss. They go, 'Oh, we've never worked in a place like this before, you're such a laugh. You get the best out of us.' And I go, you know, 'C'est la vie.' If that's true - excellent." 

"It's like, Comic Relief, yeah? I'm out here in Africa and I'm seeing the flies and the starvation... and she - if she is the boss - she's in the studio with, you know, Jonathan Ross and Lenny Henry - and they've got their suits on. They're doing their bit, they're counting the money. Good luck to them. But, their hands are clean, while I'm down here in the office with the little starving kids..." 

"What upsets me about the job? Wasted talent. People could come to me, and they could go, 'Excuse me, David, but you've been in the business twelve years. Can you just spare us a moment to tell us how to run a team, how to keep them task-orientated as well as happy?' But they don't. That's the tragedy." 

"I said, 'If Head Office try and come here and interfere, they've got me to contend with, okay? You can go and fiddle with Neil's people, but I'm the head of this family. You're not going to fiddle with my children. I am, if anyone does.'"

"I suppose I've created an atmosphere here where I'm a friend first, boss second. Probably an entertainer third."

"What is the single most important thing for a company? Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It's the people, investment in people. My proudest moment here wasn't when I increased profits by seventeen per cent, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No. It was a young Greek guy, first job in the country, hardly spoke a word of English, but he came to me and he went, 'Mr. Brent, will you be the Godfather to my child?', so. (beat) Didn't happen in the end. We had to let him go, he was rubbish. He was rubbish"

"When people say to me: would you rather be thought of as a funny man or a great boss? My answer's always the same, to me, they're not mutually exclusive."

"If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn't say um, Einstein, Newton... you know. I'd go Milligan, Cleese, Everett... Sessions."

"He [Chris Finch] was in an argument once and he went, 'How can I hate women, my mum's one.'... Yeah? There's a lot of truth in that" -- from Series 1, Episode 2

"To be honest I think you're mad to let me and Finchy on the bleedin telly. We're like Morecambe and Wise when we're together. No, not Morecambe and Wise, because there's no straight man, there's no dead wood. I'm more sort of character based, and he's more of a gag man. I do gags as well. But we're good together, by now. We sort of read each other's minds - we'll be doing a bit of shtick and we'll just start cracking up, and people watching will go 'Why's that funny?' and we tell them why and they go 'Oh yeah, yeah, you are the best.' It's their opinion."

"Yeah, and I get all this, 'ooh, David, you know, you're a brilliant singer-songwriter, you're stuck in Slough, while it's Texas that're off making all the money, and they're rubbish compared to you.' and I go, 'Don't slag them off.'"

"Me, lager. Finchy, lager. Gareth, lager sometimes cider, so different drinks for different...needs."

"You grow up, you work half a century, you get a golden handshake, you rest a couple of years and you're dead. And the only thing that makes that crazy ride worthwhile is 'Did I enjoy it? What did I learn? What was the point?' That's where I come in. You've seen how I react to people, make them feel good, make them think that anything's possible. If I make them laugh along the way, sue me. And I don't do it so they turn round and go 'Thank you David for the opportunity, thank you for the wisdom, thank you for the laughs.' I do it so, one day, someone will go 'There goes David Brent. I must remember to thank him.'"

"Well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Neil will be taking over both branches, and some of you will lose your jobs. Those of you who are kept on will have to relocate to Swindon, if you wanna stay. I know, gutting. On a more positive note, the good news is, I've been promoted. So, every cloud...

You're still thinking about the bad news, aren't you?"