England is a fairly envious little country and it's embodied in the press. They don't like anyone being more distinguished than they are.
A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
I would say that I began with a very edgy, very driven personality and after a sufficient amount of therapy over many, many years, I managed to become rather relaxed and happy.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.
Don't let anyone tell you what you ought to like... Some wines that some experts think are absolutely exquisite don't appeal to me at all.
English television from the Fifties to the Nineties was the least bad in the world, and now it's just as bad as it is anywhere.
Filming takes a lot out of you. It really does. It's immensely demanding, and you have to put the rest of your life in the icebox until you do your final shot.
When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.
I think you can write very good comedy without a partner, but what I love about it, working with a partner, is that you get to places you'd never get on your own. It's like when God was designing the world and decided we couldn't have children without a partner; it was a way of mixing up the genes so you'd get a more interesting product.
I can't tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family, it's like going to somebody else's Christmas dinner, everyone knows everyone, and you're there and you're not quite sure what you're supposed to be doing.
I was always a sports nut but I've lost interest now in whether one bunch of mercenaries in north London is going to beat another bunch of mercenaries from west London.
The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.
I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force.
I just think that sometimes we hang onto people or relationships long after they've ceased to be of any use to either of you. I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.
I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.
Michael Palin decided to give up on his considerable comedy talents to make those dreadfully tedious travel shows. Have you ever tried to watch one?
Sci-fi has never really been my bag. But I do believe in a lot of weird things these days, such as synchronicity. Quantum physics suggests it's possible, so why not?
I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker, who was such a warm, friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from.
I think that sometimes you do something that makes a small group of people laugh, which is all we were trying to do; we were just trying to make each other laugh.
