Jerry's all gold

It's 10 years since Seinfeld - Larry David's magnificent sitcom 'about nothing' - ended. Jerry's jeans and trainers combo may have dated, but the lines assuredly have not. Will Dean compiles the best of them...

George: When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy.

George: I'm 33 years old; I haven't outgrown the problems of puberty, I'm already facing the problems of old age. I completely skipped healthy adulthood. I went from having orgasms immediately, to taking forever. You could do your taxes in the time it takes me to have an orgasm. I never had a normal... medium orgasm.
Jerry: I never had a really good pickle

George: I have a bad feeling that whenever a lesbian looks at me they think, "That's why I'm not a heterosexual."

George: Why do they make the condom packets so hard to open?
Jerry: Probably to give the woman a chance to change her mind

George: My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter, I was raised to give up. It's one of the few things I do well.

George: It became very clear to me sitting out there today that every decision I've made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat - it's all been wrong.

George: Someday, before I die, mark my words... I'm gonna tell that woman exactly what I think of her. I'll never be able to forgive myself until I do.
Jerry: And if you do?
George: Well, I still won't be able to forgive myself, but at least it won't be about this.

George: I'm disturbed, I'm depressed, I'm inadequate, I've got it all!

George: Maybe if he could see me with some of my black friends...
Jerry: That would be great except that you don't really have any black friends.
[pauses]
Jerry: Outside of us, you don't really have any white friends, either...

George: I just don't see what purpose is it going to serve your going? I mean, you think dead people care who's at the funeral? They don't even know they're having a funeral. It's not like she's hanging out in the back going, "I can't believe Jerry didn't show up."
Elaine: Maybe she's there in spirit. How about that?
George: If you're a spirit, and you can travel to other dimensions and galaxies, and find out the mysteries of the universe, you think she's going to want to hang around Drexler's funeral home on Ocean Parkway?

George: A beautiful, successful, intelligent woman is in love with me and I throw it all away. Now I will spend the rest of my life living alone. I'll sit in my disgusting little apartment, watching basketball games, walking around with no underwear because I'm too lazy to do the laundry.
Jerry: You walk around with no underwear?
George: Ya, what do you do when you run out of laundry?
Jerry: I do a wash.

Mr Ross: I don't think there's any greater tragedy than when parents outlive their children.
George: Yes, I hope my parents die long before I do.

George: Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.

George: And to think I'd fail at failing...
Jerry: Aw, come on now.
George: I feel like I can't do anything wrong.
Jerry: Nonsense. You do everything wrong.
George: You think so?
Jerry: Absolutely. I have no confidence in you.
George: Well, I guess I'll just have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and throw myself right back down again.
Jerry: That's the spirit. You suck.

George: I don't like when a woman says, "Make love to me." It's intimidating. The last time a woman said that to me, I wound up apologising to her.
Jerry: Really?
George: That's a lot of pressure. "Make love to me." What am I, in a circus?

Kramer: You're wasting your life.
George: I am not. What you call wasting, I call living. I'm living my life.
Kramer: OK, like what? No, tell me. Do you have a job?
George: No.
Kramer: You got money?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have a woman?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have any prospects?
George: No.
Kramer: You got anything on the horizon?
George: Uh, no.
Kramer: Do you have any action at all?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have any conceivable reason for even getting up in the morning?
George: I like to get the Daily News.

George: Oh, see? That's why I don't have cable in my house. Because of that naked station. If I had that in my house, I would never turn it off. I wouldn't sleep, I wouldn't eat. Eventually, firemen would have to break through the door, they'd find me sitting there in my pyjamas with drool coming down my face.