You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.
If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.
A man will give up almost anything except his suffering.
I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.
The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.
I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.
If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'
My compulsion to always be working has become less strong and my current business is purely down to this enormous alimony. If I wasn't doing this I'd be making documentaries about wildlife and other subjects that interest me.
Now most people do not want an ordinary life in which they do a job well, earn the respect of their collaborators and competitors, bring up a family and have friends. That's not enough any more, and I think that is absolutely tragic - and I'm not exaggerating - that people feel like a decent, ordinary, fun life is no longer enough.
Wine is wonderful stuff. But so many people are put off by the snobbery of it.
Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.
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 think it's because in America you always get the sense that if you fail, you can just pack up your things and go somewhere else and try again. But in England, it's so geographically small that if somebody succeeds here, it reduces your chances of succeeding.
I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.
I'm not saying Obama is right on everything. Of course not. He may be wrong on a number of things. But what I do know is that he behaves like a very, very sane man almost all the time.
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.
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.
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?
I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force.
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?
