We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas.

Loving your neighbour as much as yourself is practically bloody impossible? You might as well have a commandment that states,'Thou shalt fly'.

I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.

All humour is critical, you know? You make stupid jokes. I mean, stupidity is an infirmity, isn't it?

I can't tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family -- it's like going to somebody else's Christmas dinner; everyone knows everyone and you're not quite sure what you're supposed to sit.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I think you can write very good comedy without a partner, but what I love about it, working with a partner, is that you get to places you'd never get on your own. It's like when God was designing the world and decided we couldn't have children without a partner; it was a way of mixing up the genes so you'd get a more interesting product.

The Americans are just more enthusiastic and more likely to engage in hyperbole.

The trouble with the British is that they are not interested in ideas. If Jesus came back today and offered to speak for an hour on British television, they would say, What! Another talking head?

When you've laughed like that with someone, it connects you at a humanity level.

If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?

I can never do better than 'Fawlty Towers,' whatever I do. Now I very much want to teach young talent some rules of the game.

When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.

Your Mother was A Hamster and you Father Smelled of elder berries.

My mum died about three years ago at the age of 101, and just towards the end, as she began to run out of energy, she did actually stop trying to tell me what to do most of the time.

By watching the great, old comedians I picked up a few tricks about how to do physical comedy. And whenever I could learn something, I sort of added that to my repertoire.

Michael Palin decided to give up on his considerable comedy talents to make those dreadfully tedious travel shows. Have you ever tried to watch one?

The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.

The great thing about Florida is you -- each city's about two hours' drive from everywhere else.