“I used to be a folk singer, but I was… dreadful. I had a voice like a goose farting in the fog.”

I think of my life as a series of moments and I’ve found that the great moments often don’t have too much to them.

I’m not going to throw away the hand of friendship to suit 100 Trotskyites in Glasgow.

I hate those earnest TV documentaries that are the world according to people with glasses who know better than you.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can’t always hear what people in the audience are saying.

Sometimes there’s a tackiness about Route 66 that out-tacks any tackiness I’ve ever seen anywhere else. And the Meramec Caverns are the pinnacle of that tack.

I set out to be a cross between Lenny Bruce and Robert the Bruce – my main thrust was the body and its functions and malfunctions – the absurdity of the thing.

I think age is terribly overrated. You’re okay as long as you don’t grow up. By all means grow old, but don’t mature. Remain childlike, retain wonder, the ability to be flabbergasted by something.

I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place.

I don’t have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I’ve done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that’s mostly what I’m offered.

When I was 12, we went from Glasgow to Aberdeen on a school trip. It was called fresh air fortnight.

There’s nothing like it, but it’s not as good as you think it’s going to be. . . . I was disappointed because there are records of people finding things that have been there for years. I was hoping for a shirt button, or my club’s badge – but not a sausage.

Don’t buy one of those baby intercoms. Babies pretend to be dead. They’re bastards, and they do it on purpose.

In Mexico, everything on the menu is the same dish. The only difference is the way it’s folded.

I don’t understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I’m amazed what people come up with when they look at them.

There’s a fine line you have to tread because you don’t know who is out there in the auditorium. A lot of people are too easily offended.

Life is supposed to be fun. It’s not a job or occupation. We’re here only once and we should have a bit of a laugh.

One of the things I keep reminding players is that when you’re lost in a fog, you must stick together. Then you don’t get lost. If there’s a secret about Liverpool, that’s it.

Your words surround you like fog and make you hard to see.

In England, it’s now Sir Ben. Mister has just disappeared. It’s not even on my passport anymore. They’ve taken Mister away from me.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.

Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.

Sleepwalking down the hall like a firefly in the fog.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road.