“If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.”

All we have is our vote. But it’s powerful.

I think what’s dangerous [about comedy] is that you’re coming into the room announcing your intentions.

Benito Mussolini created the word ‘fascism.’ He defined it as ‘the merging of the state and the corporation.’ He also said a more accurate word would be ‘corporatism.’

Most of what’s tricky about comedy is the perception of it and the audience’s expectation.

I’m not against banking. Banking allowed our modern society to happen, it is essential. It connects the work through finance, so banking is good.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way you can break the ice.

In general foreign invested companies who come to America to start a company, to open a manufacturing business or whatnot, they actually provide much higher wages than American companies.

Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around.

For my money, I don’t think there’s been a better comedy than ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.

I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.

I got the sense that Alabama is a place where people don’t want handouts and don’t much care for people talking out of the side of their mouth.

It’s one thing to mess stuff up and break stuff, but [Borat] is really pointing out the ideology of America.

Old man with an old phone. That’s never not funny.

It’s crazy, but even at funerals, people will get huge laughs.

I grew up with a single mom who was a waitress. We were on food stamps.

We punch mirrors and we explore our darker selves. No, it’s just an amalgam of all newscasters that we grew up with. Sort of like before there was cable, when these people were like gods.

In the ’50s, critics used to say I had a ‘dangerous’ act.

I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.

Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

Children need models rather than critics.

I had become mean and stupid and deliberately hurtful because that is what is expected of restaurant critics. Of critics in general.

I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.

Souness critics must eat humble pie as he transforms Newcastle.

Sometimes you feel critics are wrong all the time, but I don ‘t take objection to it, because that’s the way it goes. They can be wrong, they can be right. They can be cruel, they can be kind.