There's an awful lot of terrible television which I could do, but I mostly stick to Have I Got News for You.

I do have a residual belief that, if at all possible, you should try not to mock the weak.

In Britian we have a free press. It's not a pretty press, but it's free. The people who can't bear the Daily Mail, they say: 'you should ban it'. No, no, no, no, you don't ban it... you don't buy it.

I've seen the Pokémon movie, which is probably the worst movie ever made on any subject ever.

All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up.

Modest about our national pride - and inordinately proud of our national modesty.

I get paid to do what I enjoy, not that common a condition.

The best comedy is where you attack the strong, not the weak.

You have a huge amount of confidence when you're younger, which slowly ebbs away for the rest of your life. You think: 'No problem. I can do that. Why shouldn't I do it?'

I've got a very peculiar sort of fame, based on being on the telly. It doesn't mean you have the lifestyle people expect.

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.

What is so addictive about fiction is that it is the one reliable place in which we can apprehend and participate in - fully understand - the inward world of another person.

You should always choose your associations wisely because people create impressions around the music.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO.

Never do things that you will regret later.

I do think that we are an overmedicated society.

If you're going to choose your friends, you better choose them well, because when you look at your friends, you're looking at a mirror reflection. You're looking at you; you are looking at you.

... the state is not absolute, and loyalty to the state cannot be absolute.

What a treasure is hidden in two small words: 'thank you!'