Guide dogs for the blind. It's cruel really, isn't it? Getting a dog to lead a man round all day. Not fair on either of them.

I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success.

If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.

When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.

I don't like big feet. It reminds me of gammon.

If things don't come easy to you, you have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.

The truth is somewhere in the middle of funny and serious.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.

I think if you try to look for something to show off as an actor, vanity can get the better of you.

I am of the very last generation who didn't have computers at school. As we grow old we'll become something of an aberration.

A diary with no drawings of me in it? Where are the torrid fantasies? The romance covers?

I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.

Why are we surprised when fig trees bear figs?

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers - and spirit itself will stink.

Lots of people support me and I forget. But sometimes things happen and I remember, and they say I encourage them, it makes me feel very happy.

The forehead of every work must shine from afar.

The stillness in art characterizes prayer, and the eye of the storm.

Every time some spoiled European soccer millionaire complains about the blaring vuvuzelas, I want them to blare louder.

My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.

Our language and literature are without a doubt Britain's greatest contribution to the cultural heritage of the world.