Once we’ve made a decision, we are efficient only if we go through with it decisively, undistracted by doubts about its correctness.
When people quote sketches to me, half the time I don’t know what they’re talking about so I have to sort of go, aha, yes, oh yep, I remember that and lie my way out of it.
There are 3 basic differences between we British and you Americans. One, we speak English, and you don’t. Two, when we have a “World Championship”, we invite teams from other nations. Three, when you meet the British head of State, you only have to get down on one knee.
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.
Some actors, I think, want to feel that they are as creative as the writer. And the answer is, frankly, they’re not.
No hope for planet at all. But I will be gone before the planet is gone, so it’s your problem.
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?
In Britain, girls seem to be either bright or attractive. In America, that’s not the case. They’re both.
I’m always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.
That’s a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you’ve never done before that are really funny.
I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you’re left thinking, ‘Well, what’s going on?’
I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.
I don’t miss London much. I find it crowded, vast and difficult to get around. Cabs are incredibly expensive.
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.
The thrill I got discovering Buster Keaton when I was growing up was so exciting. He was one of the greats.
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.
What I’ve always wanted to do is be as funny as possible.
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.
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.
It seems astounding to me now that the video games are perhaps as important as the movie themselves. And people will spend 2 or 3 years obsessing about the video game in exactly the same way that they’d be obsessing about the movie if they were working on that.