“You remind me of the Siberian hunting spider, which adopts a highly convincing limp in three of its eight legs in order to attract its main prey.”

Nostalgia: How long’s that been around?

Marijuana? It’s harmless really, unless you fashion it into a club and beat somebody over the head with it

In Unity there is strength; We can move mountains when we’re united and enjoy life – Without unity we are victims. Stay united.

I am a confectionery-based existentialist.

This shed does not contain me.

It’s not a beard, it’s an animal I’ve trained to sit very still.

Work hard, save and live within your means.

Without the beat in the background, Jazz basically sounds like an armadillo was let loose on the keyboard.

I think we’ve missed a trick there. We could develop wheat with the properties of Velcro… to catch whatever it is that’s forming those crop circles! But then the spaceship would have to have the corresponding Velcro, so it’s a bit of a long shot.

Tonight’s show is about doubt. Or maybe it isn’t – haven’t made my mind up yet.

I’m English, and as such I crave disappointment. That’s why I buy Kinder Surprise. Horrible chocolate; nasty little toy: a double-whammy of disillusionment! Sometimes I eat the toy out of sheer despair.

People say ‘Bill, are you an optimist?’ And I say, ‘I hope so.’

The so-called Samaritan squirrel, which takes pity on the spider, and then the spider jumps on it and injects the paralyzing venom, while the squirrel remains bafflingly philosophical about the whole thing.

Orchestras have often been used to conjure up the natural world: Swans, sharks, trout, but not, as far as I know, the often maligned jellyfish.

So many beautiful things, I cannot possess them all!

Live comedy’s a very reckless, foolhardy profession. You’re only as good as your last gig so earnings fluctuate.

I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.

Whatever you resist you become. If you resist anger, you are always angry. If you resist sadness, you are always sad. If you resist suffering, you are always suffering.

I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts – facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

A great many of us have confused change with progress.

In real life, I am emotionally confused, which enables me to write songs. I’m a Pisces, and they say that Pisces are very sensitive.

I’m confused. Really, really confused.

If I had one day when I didn’t have to be all confused and didn’t have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?