A biography for Jesse Armstronghasn’t been written yet.
“A lot of research went into 'Succession.' I wrote the pilot solo, so there was a good deal of my own research and life experience in there.”
“Comedy is not good for anything, really. Apart from being one of the only things that makes life worth living.”
“As a private individual, it's probably not worth having a foreign policy of your own at all. Not unless you own at least a small boat with which to try to effect it. Probably two boats is the minimum, actually. And a gun.”
“In my own experience with films, books, plays, TV, I don't want somebody telling me what it means, because I think I know, and I want my interpretation to be valid, because it is valid.”
“There are lots of great characters in fiction who viewers and readers have engaged with that behave badly. Great characters can be unfaithful. They can lie and cheat.”
“If you're on your way to meet your maker, you are not, are you, going to stop en route for a foot-long tuna sub?”
“Talking about satire feels like death.”
“All powerful people make foolish decisions and end up in humiliating and embarrassing situations, as well as wielding their power.”
“Everyone has tacit levels of trust, don't we? In every interaction that takes place in our professional and personal lives we have boundaries that we sort of trust the other person not to breach.”
“Without sounding defensive, I would say that sometimes TV critics assume that after a few episodes the writers 'finally understand the characters,' and as a writer I often feel that what really has happened is that the viewer has gotten to know the characters. It's a natural process.”
“It's a good tip for writers, that - write with an actor in mind. Even if you have no hope of getting John Cleese, it's much better to write it with him in mind because you might find someone else to do that stuff; it really helps.”
“Roy Chubby Brown's offensive material is disgusting to me, an offensive beating-down of people who have already been beaten down plenty, culturally and historically.”
“I can't say I connected with many of my co-workers at Westminster. My MP's office was sandwiched between those of Peter Mandelson and Harriet Harman, but I never mixed with the important-looking young men and women who bustled in and out of their doors.”
“Catch-22' is the big daddy of funny war novels. It's capacious and occasionally rambling. It's a bible of literate comedy: you can find anything you want inside - it's all in there.”
“I guess I'm interested in politics - I'm interested in ideas and ideology.”
“Hit shows are very difficult to achieve. You need to have everything just right - that's what's so terrifying.”
“So often in TV you're looking at the monitor thinking, 'Oh, yeah, that sort of looks a bit like that other TV show that we're pretending to make.'”
“My daughter, who says 'Horrible Histories' is her favourite programme, gets that the tone is sophisticated and that it takes children seriously. It doesn't talk down to them.”
“One of the things that strikes me when I've read about these families - whether it be the Maxwells or the Redstones or the Julio-Claudians - is that, when you get that combination of money, power, and family relations, things get so complicated that you can justify actions to yourself that are pretty unhealthy to your well-being as a human being.”
“There's that saying: 'No man is a hero to his valet.' It's the same between flatmates.”