The principle that light can be in two places at the same time is absolutely extraordinary.

A foolproof plan for not getting a job - show up for your interview wearing flip flops.

I like pubs too, but it's hard for me to go and get proper bladdered in the way I used to. I don't want to moan about being recognised but I do get a bit of grief sometimes.

I'm more inclined to linger in the science pages of 'The Week' magazine. But my principle obsessions are still watching sitcoms and football.

I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs.

The thing I'd really like to see is the old London Bridge, with all the old buildings around it like Shakespeare's Globe. I'd like to walk along that. Don't worry, I won't get drunk and fall in.

There's a lot to do when you're a kid - spiders to catch, girls to poke in the eye - stuff to be getting on with.

I dont drive around London much. Any journey around Islington involves hundreds of speed bumps that seem to tear the bottom of your car off.

I liked the idea of all of humanity fitting inside a sugar cube because more than 99.9% of matter is space.

I'm quite a curious person. I don't mind being the one who doesn't know things, a role I often play in QI.

I'm not a great shopper but I do buy a lot of books. I'm the publishers' friend - I buy a hundred books a year and read four.

In the depths of hell roasting on a spit if it meant getting to be close to you.

Tell me thy company and I will tell thee what thou art.

I am the laziest man in the world. I invented all those things to save myself from toil.

Fire taps something ancient and vital in each of us, something both snarling and reverential.

If one concentrates on one thing and does not get away from it ... he will possess strong, moving power.

This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.

As an actor, if I show up late somewhere or I say something that's eccentric, it's totally acceptable - not only that, it's lauded in some perverse way.

Home is where the pants aren't

To me, there's nothing funnier than funny people in peril, because it's just a great springboard for people to be at a heightened emotionality and things get funnier.