“The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.”

I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.

We put a lot more value, or at least I personally put a lot more value, on the creative values and creative challenges of something than the commercial necessities.

I enjoy it when it’s over! I enjoy whatever success we have. If an audience finds it funny, then it’s been worth it.

Look, if I’d wanted a lecture on the rights of man, I’d have gone to bed with Martin Luther.

Mr. Bean had a very good chance of being successful and long-running.

Mr. Bean is at his best when he is not using words, but I am equally at home in both verbal and nonverbal expression.

I think I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple, that what I find funny finds a wide audience.

If you want to be strong learn to live alone.

I think you’re bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It’s not something you often do in comedy.

Enjoy your own company instead of expecting someone else make you happy.

I would never wish to say that I’ve finally waved goodbye to any character, it’s just that the emphasis tends to shift.

Nope, I don’t enjoy work generally. Not because I’m lazy; it’s just all so stressful and worrying.

I have a problem with Porsches. They’re wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one.

Marketing is what gets you noticed, and that side of it something – this side of it, if you like, doing interviews – is the side of it that I least enjoy, and yet is 50% of the project.

We must be allowed to insult each other.

I can be reasonably funny and light-hearted when I’m in the company of good friends, but I’m not a jokesmith. I tend to be quite serious.

You realize as a director that when you are cutting a film, you want to have alternatives. You need color and choices. You don’t want four takes that are identical.

To me, growing old is great. It’s the very best thing – considering the alternative.

I don’t think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.

There is no alternative to success. So stop thinking you should already be there.

Government “planning” is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people’s plans.

When people are presented with the alternatives of hating themselves for their failure or hating others for their success, they seldom choose to hate themselves.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.