35 Hilarious This Is Spinal Tap Quotes

When it comes to the mockumentary genre of movies, they don’t get much better than This Is Spinal Tap. The 1984 classic follows the hilarious career of British heavy metal act This Is Spinal Tap. Described as “one of England’s loudest bands,” the movie is a satire of the classic rock doco that’s chock full of incredible performances, hilarious jokes, and dozens of laugh-out-loud This Is Spinal Tap quotes.

Director Rob Reiner plays documentary filmmaker Martin “Marty” Di Bergi who follows the band on their 1982 American tour, detailing all the drama and funny moments This Is Spinal Tap experience, such as struggling ticket sales, in-house fighting, problems with their Stonehenge stage set-up, and the hysterical ways the band’s drummers keep dying.

Comprising of David St Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) on vocals and guitar, bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff), and drummer Mick Shrimpton (R.J. Parnell), This Is Spinal Tap continually find themselves wrapped up in drama, usually of their own accord, leading to plenty of laughs.

The movie’s success is thanks to the clever and witty script by Guest, McKean, Shearer, and Reiner that pokes fun at the music industry–particularly the pretentious rock bands of the 80s–and is laden with funny quotes that have become part of pop culture and everyday conversation. The cast of supporting actors is also amazing, with the likes of Ed Begley Jr., Billy Crystal, Fran Drescher, Dana Carvey, Anjelica Huston, Fred Willard, and Paul Shaffer all making their presence felt.

Deemed by Jeremy Arnold as “effectively” launching the mockumentary genre of film in his 2016 book, The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies and Why They Matter, This Is Spinal Tap is one of the great 80s comedies with some of the best movie quotes, as you will discover below.

35 Hilarious and Timeless This Is Spinal Tap Quotes

1. “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn’t believe anything.” – David St. Hubbins
2. “You don’t do heavy metal in Dubly, you know.” – Jeanine Pettibone
3. David St. Hubbins: “I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down.  I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.” Ian Faith: “I really think you’re just making much too big a thing out of it.” Derek Smalls: “Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.”
4. “Well, this piece is called ‘Lick My Love Pump.” – Nigel Tufnel
5. “They’ve earned themselves a distinguished place in rock history as one of Britain’s loudest bands.” – Marty DiBergi
6. “Oh, we’ve got a bigger dressing room than the puppets. That’s refreshing.” – David St. Hubbins
7. “We’re very lucky in the sense that we’ve got two visionaries in the band, you know, David and Nigel are both, like, poets, you know, like Shelley or Byron or people like that. They’re two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, basically, you see in ’em. I feel my role in the band is to be kind of in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.” – Derek Smalls
8. “We’ve got Armadillos in our trousers. It’s really quite frightening.” – Nigel Tufnel
9. “May I start by saying how thrilled we are to have you here. We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I’m not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll.” – Lt. Hookstratten
10. “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.” – Nigel Tufnel
11. Nigel Tufnel: “The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven, and… Marty DiBergi: “Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?” Nigel Tufnel: “Exactly.” Marty DiBergi: “Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?” Nigel Tufnel: “Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?” Marty DiBergi: “I don’t know.” Nigel Tufnel: “Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?” Marty DiBergi: “Put it up to eleven?” Nigel Tufnel: “Eleven. Exactly. One louder.” Marty DiBergi: “Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?” Nigel Tufnel: “[pause] These go to eleven.”
12. “Well, I don’t really think the end can be assessed, uh, as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how – what does that mean? How far is all the way and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.” – David St. Hubbins
13.  “In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people… the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing…” – Nigel Tufnel
14. David St. Hubbins: “We say, ‘Love your brother.’ We don’t say it really, but…” Nigel Tufnel: “We don’t literally say it.” David St. Hubbins: “No, we don’t say it.” Nigel Tufnel: “We don’t really, literally mean it.” David St. Hubbins: “No, we don’t believe it either, but…” Nigel Tufnel: “But we’re not racists.” David St. Hubbins: “But that message should be clear, anyway.” Nigel Tufnel: “We’re anything but racists.”
15. Marty DiBergi: “And what happened to Stumpy Joe?” Derek Smalls: “It’s not a very pleasant story. But uh, he died. He choked on uh, the official explanation was he choked on vomit.” Nigel Tufnel: “It was actually. It was actually someone else’s vomit. You know there’s no real…” Derek Smalls: “Well they can’t prove whose vomit it was. They don’t have the ability. There’s no way of…” Nigel Tufnel: “You can’t really dust for vomit.”
16. “The review you had on ‘Shark Sandwich,’ which was merely a two-word review, just said ‘Shit sandwich.’” – Marty DiBergi
17. Ian Faith: “It’s sexist.” Nigel Tufnel: “What’s wrong with being sexy?”
18. Marty DiBergi: “David St. Hubbins… I must admit I’ve never heard anybody with that name.” David St. Hubbins: “It’s an unusual name, well, he was an unusual saint, he’s not a very well known saint.” Marty DiBergi: “Oh, there actually is, uh… there was a Saint Hubbins?” David St. Hubbins: “That’s right, yes.” Marty DiBergi: “What was he the saint of?” David St. Hubbins: “He was the patron saint of quality footwear.”
19. Derek Smalls: “We’re lucky.” David St. Hubbins: “Yeah.” Derek Smalls: “I mean, people should be envying us, you know.” David St. Hubbins: “I envy us.” Derek Smalls: “Yeah.” David St. Hubbins: “I do.” Derek Smalls: “Me too.”
20. Marty DiBergi: “What would you do if you couldn’t play music anymore?” Mick Shrimpton: “Well, as long as there’s, you know, sex and drugs, I could do without the rock n’ roll.”
21. Airport Security Officer: “Do you have any artificial plates or limbs?” Derek Smalls: “Er, not really. No.”
22. Marty DiBergi: “Let’s talk about your reviews a little bit. Regarding Intravenus de Milo – ‘This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.'” Nigel Tufnel: “That’s… that’s nitpicking, isn’t it?”
23. David St. Hubbins: “He died in a bizarre gardening accident…” Nigel Tufnel: “Authorities said… best leave it… unsolved.”
24. “Hello, Cleveland!” – Derek Smalls
25. “Well, I’m sure I’d feel much worse if I weren’t under such heavy sedation.” – David St. Hubbins
26. Morty the Mime: “Whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah. How come you got so much here?” Mime Waiter: “I don’t know, they’re not eating it.” Morty the Mime: “Did you do the wind?” Mime Waiter: “I did the wind, I did the wind.” Morty the Mime: “No, you don’t push the wind away, the wind comes at you. Ok change those, get the little dwarf cannolis. Come on, don’t talk back, mime is money, come on, move it.”
27. “This pretentious ponderous collection of religious rock psalms is enough to prompt the question, ‘What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap, and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?’” – Marty DiBergi
28. David St. Hubbins: “It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…” Nigel Tufnel: “Clever.” David St. Hubbins: “Yeah, and clever.”
29. Ian Faith: “The Boston gig has been canceled…” David St. Hubbins: “What?” Ian Faith: “Yeah. I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s not a big college town.”
30. Marty DiBergi: “Do you feel that playing rock ‘n’ roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?” Derek Smalls: “No. No. No. I feel it’s like, it’s more like going, going to a, a national park or something. And there’s, you know, they preserve the moose. And that’s, that’s my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.” Marty DiBergi: “So when you’re playing you feel like a preserved moose on stage?” Derek Smalls: “Yeah.”
31. “He died. He died in a bizarre gardening accident.” – David St Hubbins
32. “I remember being knocked out by their… their exuberance, their raw power… and their punctuality.” – Marty DiBergi
33. (Asked to write his own epitaph) “Here lies David St. Hubbins… and why not?” – David St. Hubbins
34. Nigel Tufnel: “Look… still has the old tag on, never even played it.” Marty DiBergi: (points his finger at the guitar) “You’ve never played…?” Nigel Tufnel: “Don’t touch it!” Marty DiBergi: “Well I wasn’t going to touch it, I was just pointing at it.” Nigel Tufnel: “Well… don’t point! It can’t be played.” Marty DiBergi:” Don’t point, okay. Can I look at it?” Nigel Tufnel: “No. no. That’s it, you’ve seen enough of that one.”
35. Marty DiBergi: “Now, during the Flower People period, who was your drummer?” David St. Hubbins: “Stumpy’s replacement, Peter James Bond. He also died in mysterious circumstances. We were playing a, uh…” Nigel Tufnel: “…Festival.” David St. Hubbins: “Jazz Blues Festival. Where was that?” Nigel Tufnel: “Blues Jazz, really.” Derek Smalls: “Blues Jazz Festival. Misnamed.” Nigel Tufnel: “It was in the Isle of, uh…” David St. Hubbins: “Isle of Lucy. The Isle of Lucy Jazz and Blues Festival.” Nigel Tufnel: “And, uh, it was tragic, really. He exploded on stage.” Derek Smalls: “Just like that.” David St. Hubbins: “He just went up.” Nigel Tufnel: “He just was like a flash of green light… and that was it. Nothing was left.” David St. Hubbins: “Look at his face.” Nigel Tufnel: “Well, there was…” David St. Hubbins: “It’s true, this really did happen.” Nigel Tufnel: “It’s true. There was a little green globule on his drum seat.” David St. Hubbins:” Like a stain, really.” Nigel Tufnel: “It was more of a stain than a globule, actually.” David St. Hubbins: “You know, several, you know, dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It’s just not really widely reported.”