David Brent's funniest quotes from The Office

9 July 2023, 17:55 | Updated: 11 July 2023, 16:26

Ricky Gervais launched his "sleazy boss" character 22 years ago today. Here are some of his classic lines.

David Brent, the boss of Wernham Hogg in Slough, made his TV debut on 9 July 2001 when the first episode of the "mockumentary" The Office aired.

The BBC-2 comedy made a star of Ricky Gervais - alongside his colleagues Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook and Lucy Davis, plus co-writer Stephen Merchant.

The show lasted just two series before being spun-off into a successful film, David Brent: Life On The Road. And each episode was packed full of hilarious - and occasionally poignant - words of wisdom from David Brent.

Here are just a few of Brent's classic moments.

1. “If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn't say Einstein, Newton... you know. I'd go: Milligan, Cleese, Everett… Sessions.”

   

2. “We’re like one big organism, one big animal, yeah? The guys upstairs on the phone, they're the mouth. The guys down here, the hands. I’m probably the humour.”

   

3. “When people say to me, ‘Oh, 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."

   

4. ”I suppose I've created an atmosphere where I'm a friend first and a boss second. Probably an entertainer third."

   

5. “They’ve got to trust me - I'm taking these guys into battle, yeah? And I'm doing my own stapling.”

   

6. “’If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain'. Do you know which ‘philosopher’ said that? Dolly Parton."

   

7. “There’s a weight of intellect behind my comedy, yeah?”

   

8. “I don't do it so they turn round and go 'Thank you David for the opportunity, thank you for the laughs.' I do it so, one day, someone will go 'There goes David Brent. I must remember to thank him.’”

   

9. “You will never work in a place like this again. This is brilliant - fact! Yeah? And you’ll never have another boss like me. Someone who's basically a chilled-out entertainer, yeah?”

   

10. “I’m already exploring the entertainment avenue with my management training, but I'd like to do that on a global scale, really.”

    

11. “How do I want to be remembered? Simply as the man who put a smile on the face of everyone he met.”