It’s only on the brink that people find the will to change.  Only at the precipice do we evolve.

Tension is wonderful for making people laugh.

A satisfied customer — we should have him stuffed!

Comedy always works best when it is mean spirited.

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.

Some actors, I think, want to feel that they are as creative as the writer. And the answer is, frankly, they’re not.

The Americans are so much more positive. They are much more in love with success. In Britain, they’re a fairly envious bunch, and they love it if you fail.

Genuinely good manners are, after all, essentially a way of moderating one’s own egotism, often in the service of considering the egos of others. Even if it’s done mainly for show, it’s still a start.

I think that I feel an indignation when I don’t understand something.

The neurologist and psychologist Maurice Nicoll told how he had once asked his headmaster about a passage in the Bible, and after he had listened to the answer for some time, he realized that the man had no idea what he was talking about. What I admire about Nicoll is that he made this discovery when he was only ten. It took me another forty-five years before the penny dropped: very, very few people have any idea what they are talking about.