Barman Quotes & Sayings

At Tulliallan Police College DI John Rebus based at St. Leonard's police station in Edinburgh DI James "Jazz" McCullough based in Dundee DI Francis Gray based in Glasgow DS Stu Sutherland based in Livingston DI Thomas "Tam" Barclay based in Falkirk DC Allan Ward based in Dumfries DCI Archibald Tennant the Resurrection Men's boss Andrea Thomson career analyst The Rico Lomax Murder Case Eric "Rico" Lomax murder victim Fenella Rico's widow "Chib" Kelly Fenella's current lover, Glasgow bar owner and criminal Richard "Dickie" Diamond Rico's friend Malky Dickie's nephew, barman in Edinburgh Jenny Bell Dickie's onetime girlfriend Bernie Johns deceased Glasgow drug baron — Ian Rankin

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The barman looks at them and says: "Is this some kind of a joke?" — Frank Carson

Haven't you ever heard of an artist's muse?" the barman asked. "They all seem to either have one or want one. Me, all I want is peace and quiet. — Louise Penny

I've been an engineer, barman, skip lorry driver, coalman, boat window manufacturer, contract grass cutter and builder. — Neal Asher

What's that thing when someone gets a knock on the head and suddenly can't remember anything about himself?'
Death,' said the barman, his face a mask of disapproval. — Steve Aylett

Chace went to the bar to order the first round, two lagers. The barman was old, and old-fashioned, and when he served her one pine, presumably for Wallace, and a half, presumably for her, she sent the half back.
"No, another pint, if you please."
The barman's eyes turned critical. "Not terribly ladylike."
"I'm a terrible lady. — Greg Rucka

My humble ... I don't drink ... '
'A shame! What about a game of dice, then? Or do have some other favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?
'I don't play games,' the already weary barman responded.
'Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something noce nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! Chapter 18 — Mikhail Bulgakov

Harry had the impression that even the barman was listening in. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag; it was becoming steadily dirtier. — J.K. Rowling

A jump lead walks into a bar. The barman says "I'll serve you, but don't start anything." — Tommy Cooper

You find actually over the years that you get attributed with a lot of things you didn't do and you don't get reported on a lot of things you did do and I must say, when I read some of these things I wonder where the journalists get them from. They generally speak to somebody who's spoken to somebody who was down the back of a pub who heard the barman say, and gradually finds its way into magazines or articles but no, that's not the case. — Peter Costello

I found college awkward: another teacher, same old chalkboard.
I felt I was shifting backward, when I expected to shoot forward. — MC Paul Barman

The exceptions were two men a little ahead of them, standing just outside the Three Broomsticks. One was very tall and thin; squinting through his rain-washed glasses Harry recognized the barman who worked in the other Hogsmeade pub, the Hog's Head. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione drew closer, the barman drew his cloak more tightly around his neck and walked away, leaving the shorter man to fumble with something in his arms. They were barely feet from him when Harry realized who the man was.
Mundungus! — J.K. Rowling

Bout a month ago. She came in Boxing Day but I put her out. She was begging people, not even tapping, but begging for drink."
"She can't have been disrupting ye, surely?" asked Maureen.
"See those old swines over there?" He gestured to his only customers. The old men heard him and their chat fell silent.
The barman raised his voice. "They were asking what they would get for their money. Auld swines, playing on the lassie's weakness for the drink." He lowered his voice. "That's pensioners for ye - they can smell a bargain a mile off," he muttered, as if the bargain-hunting skill of the elderly was an unspoken universal truth. — Denise Mina

eyeing his blue overalls. A game of darts which was going on at the other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty seconds. The old man whom he had followed was standing at the bar, having some kind of altercation with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young man with enormous forearms. A knot of others, standing round with glasses in their hands, were watching the scene. 'I arst you civil — George Orwell

We talked to each other as you'd talk to a stranger you'd met while drunk after the barman calls for last orders, sure you wouldn't remember the other's face in the morning. (69) — Elina Hirvonen

A horse walks into a bar, and the barman says "Why the long face?". The horse replies: "I'm deeply troubled by the anthropomorphic aspects of my existence and the extent to which I am now protected by law." — Bill Bailey

Objectively, class differences in accent, dress, manners, and general style of life are very much smaller; and one cannot, strolling about the street or travelling on a train, instantly identify a person's social background as one can in England. Subjectively, social relations are more natural and egalitarian, and less marked by deference, submissiveness, or snobbery, as one quickly discovers from the cab-driver, the barman, the air-hostess and the drug-store assistant. — Anthony Crosland

Bond went into the lobby bar to gather his thoughts and ordered a vodka martini, explaining to the barman the best way to achieve the effect of vermouth without diluting the vodka too much. Ice in the shaker, add a slurp of vermouth, pour out the vermouth, add the vodka, shake well, strain into a chilled glass, add a slice of lemon peel, no pith. — William Boyd

And the barman asked me if I was alright? Simple little question. And i said I was. And he said he'd make me a sandwich. And I said okay. And I nearly started crying--because you know, here was someone just...And I watched him. He took two big slices off a fresh loaf and buttered them carefully, spreading it all around. I'll never forget it. And then he sliced some cheese and cooked ham and an onion out of a jar, and put it all on a plate and sliced it down the middle. And, just someone doing this for me. And putting it down in front of me. 'Get that down you, now,' he said. And then he folded up his newspaper and put on his jacket, and went off on his break. And there was another barman then. And I took this sandwich up and I could hardly swallow it, because of the lump in my throat. But I ate i tall down because someone I didn't know had done this for me. Such a small thing. But a huge thing. In my condition. — Conor McPherson

I just rocked the eye chart,
So if you can't see it, now you know it by heart. — MC Paul Barman

But I think my most lasting impression was still the unhurried dignity and noblesse with which the Spaniard handled his drink. He never gulped, panicked, pleaded with the barman, or let himself be shouted into the street. Drink, for him, was one of the natural privileges of living, rather than the temporary suicide it so often is for others. But then it was lightly taxed here, and there were no licensing laws; and under such conditions one could take one's time. — Laurie Lee

The barman nodded and looked around for the elf. "Thought he'd be with you. Where've you left him?" "He's dead," said Harry. "Bellatrix Lestrange killed him. — J.K. Rowling

Olsons P.I. 'Kenny Jones' as he approaches a barman in a notorious Bangkok Gay bar as part of an investigation -
'I was tempted to ask him if he had heard the one about the two condoms walking down Soi Rome when they see The Balcony Pub. One condom turns to the other and says 'Let's go in there and get shit-faced' - — Warren Olson

The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe. — Douglas Adams

I had gone to New York with no plan at all. I did a lot of jobs - barman, teacher, security guard, postman and construction worker - and I was meeting many eccentric characters, and they were saying funny things, which I always wrote down. — Adrian McKinty

Good evening," said the barman. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" "Because Poe wrote on both? — Jasper Fforde

Bond insisted ordering Leiter's Haig-and-Haig "on the rocks" and then he looked carefully at the barman. "A Dry Martini", he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." "Oui, monsieur." Just a moment. Three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemonpeel. Got it?" "Certainly, monsieur." The barman seemed pleased with the idea. — Ian Fleming

I thought," he said, "that if the world was going to end we were meant to lie down or put a paper bag over our head or something."

"If you like, yes," said Ford.

"That's what they told us in the army," said the man, and his eyes began the long trek back down to his whisky.

"Will that help?" asked the barman.

"No," said Ford and gave him a friendly smile. — Douglas Adams

Told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. — Douglas Adams

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. — Terry Pratchett

My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny's panties moist, — MC Paul Barman

I'll let a mystery gas out of my blistery ass
Just to disrupt the misery of history class. — MC Paul Barman

The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grump-looking old man with a great deal of a long gray hair and a beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry. — J.K. Rowling

If you *think* you think outside the box, you're trapped in one. — MC Paul Barman

WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN? "How many drinks have you had?" FORTY-SEVEN. "Just about anything, then," said the barman — Terry Pratchett

As the barman's hand rose from beneath the bar, Cabal was filled with a presentiment and a strange foreboding that he hadn't felt since the last time he'd watched the nightmare corpse city of R'lyeh rise, effulgent with the ineffable and fetid with fish, rise from the depths of the Pacific. — Jonathan L. Howard

The uncomfortable truth is that we all enjoyed the party far too much to query where all the booze was coming from. Now we seem intent on lynching the barman for letting us get drunk and attacking the Government for letting us get a hangover. — Sean O'Grady

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor. — Terry Pratchett

What's that, forgone conclusion then you reckon, sir?' said the barman. 'Arsenal without a chance?'
'No, no,' said Ford, 'it's just that the world's about to end. — Douglas Adams

A guy is sitting in a bar getting bored, looking to strike up a conversation. He turns to the bartender and says, "Hey, about those Democrats in Congress..." "STOP pal - I don't allow talk about politics in my bar!" interrupted the bartender. A few minutes later the guy tries again: "You know what some people say about the pope?" "NO religion talk, either," the bartender cuts in. One more try to break the boredom: "This year, I really thought the Yankees would..." "NO sports talk. That's how fights start in bars!" the barman says. "Look, how about sex. Can I talk to you about sex?" "Sure, that we can talk about any time," replies the barkeep. "GREAT... GO FUCK YOURSELF! — Barry Dougherty