Eric Idle

“You look just like you!”

“Probably spending 12 years at boarding school - comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty.”

“You initially become funny as a kid because you're looking for attention and love. Psychologists think that's all to do with mother abandonment. I think John Cleese has his depressions, and Terry Gilliam's the same. All of us together make one completely insane person.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.”

“I'm more surprised than anyone that 'Spamalot's done so well. You can never predict what's going to be a hit.”

“No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.”

“My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly.”

“Mere lack of evidence, of course, is no reason to denounce a theory. Look at intelligent design. The fact that it is bollocks hasn’t stopped a good many people from believing in it. Darwinism itself is only supported by tons of evidence, which is a clear indication that Darwin didn’t write his books himself.”

“Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.”

“To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.”

“The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?”

“We've discovered that the less we do, the more money we make.”

“Life took over 4 billion years to evolve into you, and you've about 70 more years to enjoy it. Don't just pursue happiness, catch it.”

“It just seems to me that there's no particular reason comedy albums should be dead. There's a lot to laugh at. We have very funny people, still.”

“Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.”

“I love stage work. The thing about plays is that they're perfectible. With film, you shoot that take and maybe another. During 'Spamalot,' I rewrote Act II three times.”

“I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man.”

“I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.”

“At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.”

“Talent is always more interesting - ambition is not interesting. If you have talent, you have to find ways of expressing it, but you may not be a success in the world's terms.”