I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking `Do you want fries with that?`

[from the eulogy he gave at Graham Chapman`s memorial service] And I guess that we`re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, a man of such capability and kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now, so suddenly, be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he`d achieved many of the things which he was capable and before he`d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say "Nonsense!" Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.

Filming is like a long air journey: there`s so much hanging around and boredom that they keep giving you food.

When people say "I`m not a prude, but..." what they mean is "I am a prude, and..."

"You don`t have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life`s about change."

"If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick."

I don`t think anyone should be educated sexually. There`s far too many people on the planet. If we could hush it up for a few years, that would help.

"My mum died about three years ago at the age of 101, and just towards the end, as she began to run out of energy, she did actually stop trying to tell me what to do most of the time."

"When I was a child and I was upset about something, my mother was not capable of containing that emotion, of letting me be upset but reassuring me, of just being with me in a calming way. She always got in a flap, so I not only had my own baby panics, fears and terrors to deal with, but I had to cope with hers, too. Eventually I taught myself to remain calm when I was panicked, in order not to upset her. In a way, she had managed to put me in charge of her. At 18 months old, I was doing the parenting."

"I`m probably the worst singer in Europe. I won`t compete for North America."

"At my age, I want to wake up and see sunshine pouring in through the windows every day." - about his move from England to California.

"In Britain, girls seem to be either bright or attractive. In America, that`s not the case. They`re both."

I never enjoyed The Meaning of Life (1983). I always regarded that entire film as a bit of a cockup.

"It`s lovely that Harry Potter and the Bond movies are still shot in England - that`s a great pleasure, but it`s true that most of the well-paid work is in America."

"You go in and meet the head of BBC One and get an assurance about not dumbing down. And then, of course a few months later, he`s been replaced by someone you haven`t met." (Speaking in 2001)

"I think there`s much more fear now than there used to be, much more fear of failure." (Speaking in 2001)