Quotes

Famous uses and quotations

The word at its best, from the people who used it best. Sources are given; a few are well-attested rather than verbatim, and are marked as such.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.Philip Larkin, "This Be The Verse", 1971

Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse.John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, "A Ramble in St James's Park", c. 1672

Non sunt in coeli, quia fuccant uuiuys of heli.Anonymous, "Flen flyys", c. 1475 (decoded from cipher). "They are not in heaven, because they fuck the wives of Ely."

O d fuckin Abbot.Marginal note by a monk in a manuscript of Cicero, Bristol, 1528. The earliest known "fucking".

I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word "fuck" would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden.Kenneth Tynan, BBC-3, 13 November 1965. The first use on British television.

One man's vulgarity is another's lyric.Justice John Marshall Harlan II, Cohen v. California, 1971

Fuck is a very important word. It's the one magic word. Just by its sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love.George Carlin, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", 1972

You dirty fucker... What a fucking rotter.Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols to Bill Grundy, Thames Television, 1 December 1976

Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off.Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), The Thick of It, 2005

This is a big fucking deal.Joe Biden to Barack Obama, 23 March 2010, into a live microphone

Go fuck yourself.Dick Cheney to Senator Patrick Leahy, US Senate floor, 22 June 2004

Fuck the Draft.Jacket worn by Paul Robert Cohen in Los Angeles County Courthouse, 1968

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.Rage Against the Machine, "Killing in the Name", 1992; UK Christmas number one, 2009

Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!Rob Tyner, MC5, Kick Out the Jams, 1969

Up against the wall, motherfucker.Jefferson Airplane, "We Can Be Together", 1969. Sung on The Dick Cavett Show the same year.

Fuck business.Boris Johnson, foreign secretary, June 2018 (reported; not denied)

So you're the young man who can't spell fuck.Tallulah Bankhead to Norman Mailer, on the "fug" of The Naked and the Dead, late 1940s (well-attested anecdote, wording varies)

[Expletive deleted]The Nixon White House transcripts, April 1974, passim

A word from the Anglo-Saxon and, as far as I'm concerned, a very good one.Mervyn Griffith-Jones, prosecuting counsel, misdescribing the etymology at the Lady Chatterley trial, 1960 (the "Anglo-Saxon" claim is discussed under History)

What kind of fuckery is this?Amy Winehouse, "Me and Mr Jones", 2006

Fuck this shit, I'm out.The internet, c. 2016