Rory Bremner

“I think comedy and satire are a very important part of democracy, and it's important we are able to laugh at the idiosyncrasies or the follies or vanities of people in power.”

“I remember driving home one evening while they were reviewing the papers on the radio. One of the articles was about me separating from my wife. It's a weird thing to listen to a news report about the break-up of your marriage.”

“I think I probably tend to make life hard for myself by taking on too many things. I call it plate spinning.”

“Genealogy is among the fastest-growing leisure pursuits in the U.K. Indeed, the urge to uncover the truth about our ancestors has proved so compelling that, when the 1901 census first went online, the website crashed after a million people logged on within hours of its launch.”

“In a more intellectually rigorous age, I wouldn't be talked about as a satirist at all. I would just be a topical comedian.”

“It is a weird thing, because most people tend to get more conservative as they get older, but I find myself going the opposite way. I am sure that by the end I will be selling Marxist pamphlets on the Holloway Road.”

“When I think back to my childhood, it's with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I was always forgetting things. My mum called me scatty because I could never sit still. But there was no sense I was suffering from a medical condition as such.”

“Location is everything, I'd rather camp in the Lake District or Scotland than sit in a five-star hotel in Frankfurt.”

“I am proud of Edinburgh's status as a financial centre, but where is it on the index of global financial centres? Sixty-fourth. Below Hamilton, Casablanca and Mauritius. London, by contrast, is second only to New York. That's a link worth keeping.”

“In truth, I barely knew my father at all. He was 53 when I was born, and when I was ten he contracted cancer. Eight years later, in 1979, he died.”

“Politics in Scotland is far too important to be taken seriously.”

“Like millions of Scots, I've agonised over whether to go for independence or remain with the Union.”

“I am more relaxed at home in Scotland, and my children are of an age where I want us, as a family, to spend more time up here.”

“I don't think my life would be significantly poorer if I don't impersonate Nick Clegg. Life is short enough without sitting up night after night listening to tapes of him.”

“I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider.”

“People may say that what I do is very clever, but it's not really at all. It's not Swift.”

“Being a great believer in Scottish tradition, I followed the example of my fellow countrymen and moved to England.”

“I have never been good at doing impressions of women. Which is understandable. There's a gender issue.”

“I can't look at John Prescott without thinking of Les Dawson, and Robin Cook is a caricature of himself.”

“But let's be clear. We're talking about a country where there's no opposition. As leader he can ignore Parliament and - sorry that's Tony Blair isn't it? Um, so he doesn't even have to ask the country before he goes to war - sorry that's still Tony Blair.”