“I don’t believe there is a God. If I were to believe in a god, l would believe in gods.”

Moving from chair to chair, from coffee machine to coffee machine is the limit of my action in most films. But I enjoy being cast in them because I love watching them.

When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel.

It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common.

Philosophy is an odd thing. When we use the word in everyday speech, you know, you sometimes hear it hilariously.

I think the fact that I’m so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman – I’ll kiss a frog if you like.

When you’ve seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.

My parents were marvelously educated people.

I don’t need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.

If you go looking for loonies and religious fanatics and dropouts and freaks, I dare say you’ll find it.

Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long – 20 years or so – I felt that it would be daft to go to one’s grave without having directed. It’s a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

Happiness is no respecter of persons.

I’ve always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden’s animations.

As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it’ll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.

My life, at least, is divided between writing and performing and mixtures of the two.

I shouldn’t be saying this – high treason, really – but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.

I sang do-wop on the street corner before it was called do-wop.I can sing some polkas. And proud of that.

When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself.

I didn’t think I was going to have to do three, but the idiot kept getting reelected.

They’re about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

Well, a lot of politics is communicating with people, and obviously comedy has something to do with that.

But find something that you absolutely love doing. And then get to love the way you do it. That’s the uniqueness of all of us. That’s it.

Do they have a right? You’re damn right they have a right!