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

You can’t reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra six inches in height.

Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.

But happiness is no respecter of persons.

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.

And I do watch TV, but only informative programmes like the news and documentaries.

You have to invent a book of rules of what you can do and what you can’t do.

The physical part has a lot to do with the mental part.

I am black. What are you going to do about it?

The thing about ‘Entourage’ is everything we do is realistic.

And why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?

I’d probably support it, but I can’t do much.

The next step is figuring out how you’re going to do it.