I tend to have an odd split in my mind: I tend to look at it as a writer and when the writing thing is OK and I'm happy with it, then I put on my actor's hat.
A man will give up almost anything except his suffering.
But then acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with.
Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.
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.
For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what God can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.
God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.
I can never do better than Fawlty Towers whatever I do. Now I very much want to teach young talent some rules of the game.
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
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.
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.
I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.
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.
Who's ever going to write a film in which I get the girl? Me!
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.