I've learned to start from a really sound argument, boil down the essence of what you're trying to say, then build your humor around that, rather than starting with, 'This sounds funny,' and going from there.
Always say 'no pun intended' to draw attention to the intended pun.
They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, 'But doesn't it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn't it be set in New Guinea?' And you say, 'But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.'
When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject.
There will always be a part of me that wants to do a movie musical. I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice when you say something like that, because you never know if that thing is gonna come along and be right, but I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't true.
A key to everything is surrender - to really come before the Lord and say, 'I will literally stay here as long as you want me to stay' or 'God, I will really go anywhere on the earth.'
I only think about the choices I want to make and act responsibly - not say or do stupid things, like break the law or get caught doing stupid things.
If Spurs ever came back in me for me, I'd say no.
I like how people will post pictures of me with other women that I adore, hugging on red carpets, and say, 'See?' Are we so uncomfortable with love between two people of the same gender that we immediately label it as sexual? But I've never been bothered by the lesbian rumor. There's nothing offensive about it, so there's no reason to be offended.
Mainly it's the parents who remember me. But the kids today, what they do is go and Google you. A lot of them turn up and they know everything about me. They say: 'You scored 346 goals' or 'You wore the No9 shirt for Liverpool.'
I would say that I was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making an uranium engine, but I never thought that we would make a bomb; and at the bottom of my heart, I was really glad that it was to be an engine and not a bomb.
I always say that I was born in the wrong era. I should've been born in the '70s or '80s when love meant so much more than it does today. In this busy world, we forget to find each other, fall in love, and go all the way for our soul mates.
Always be available to your kids. Because if you say, 'Give me five minutes, give me ten minutes,' it'll be 15, it'll be 20. And then when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is they wanted to share with you.
As much as people say they love change, they love it when you change - not when you want them to change. Even when it comes to processes they don't like, they're afraid of change.
Typically, it takes young players years to adjust to life in the big leagues and to start performing up to their capabilities. Most of the blame for this rests on these ridiculous old baseball norms that say young players are to be seen and not heard.
The only thing I would unequivocally say is that I have never had any interest in romantic comedy I just couldn't do it. I think I'd be terrible.
I've heard other gay people say when they were growing up they felt 'foreign.' Growing up, I was able to label these feelings as: 'I'm a Protestant.' It wasn't until I left, I thought: 'Oh, those weren't Protestant feelings.'
As for memes, the word 'meme' is a cliche, which is to say it's already a meme. We all hear it all the time, and maybe we even have started to use it in ordinary speech. The man who invented it was Richard Dawkins, who was, not coincidentally, an evolutionary biologist. And he invented it as an analog for the gene.
I doubt I'd ever do television to the extent that, say, Gordon Ramsay has.
If someone stands in front of one of my paintings and says, 'This is just a mess', the word 'just' is not so good, but 'mess' might be right. Why not a mess? If it makes you say, 'Wow, I've never seen anything like that', that's beautiful.
People used to say, 'Andy Serkis lent his movements to Gollum,' and now they say, 'Andy Serkis played Caesar.' That's a significant leap.
People don't say, 'I just had a kid and I hope it turns out to be a factory worker.'
The Beat Generation - that term is even more familiar now, even more than say the '70s. Hype is built and established and people link it back to a certain generation, in this case the '40s and '50s. Now everyone knows that that group was the Beat Generation.
The good thing about 'Have I Got News For You' is it's a compact show but it still gives everyone space to breathe, and everyone always gets a chance to say something if they want to. It's a very difficult show to dominate, and guests who come on and dominate always fall foul.
Yes, I'm a 'Twi-hard.' I became obsessed. Absolutely obsessed. I didn't watch television, I didn't go to the cinema. My friends would ring and say: 'What are you doing?' And I would say: 'I've just got to finish this chapter.'
The biggest compliments I've heard about 'That Metal Show' are the ones from people that say that they don't even listen to this kind of music, but, 'We love watching the show.'
I've always been the DJ or the bass player or the drummer, somebody in the background. I don't think anybody who knows me personally would say that I'm particularly shy or introverted, but I'm definitely not like Mr. Attention.
Plays, especially great plays, yield their secrets over a long period of time. You can't read it three times and say, 'OK, I got it. I know what's happening.'
Let's just say I've never relied on my looks to make a living.
If anything, I'd say my family was entrepreneurial - my grandfather and father. It was in our blood. But I didn't have this one mentor that was super successful.
My closet is pretty organized, I'm proud to say. It's set up by type of clothes and then by color. And then, of course, there's the rotating from spring/summer to fall/winter.
Miss Marple believes in justice and has very high standards. There is nothing you could say or do that would shock her.
I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.
In all the things I've gone through as a politician, I have seen that in this system it is really very difficult to make any headway without being somehow tainted. And let me say, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'
I'm probably tougher on myself than I used to be. I'll revise my lyrics more. Part of that is working with the right people and producers who will say, 'How can you make that better?' Allowing yourself to collaborate with people will push you toward transcendence.
I know a lot of people who are weak, who are in a perpetual cycle of poverty and being locked up. There are guys from my neighborhood who are in jail or who are dead. It does take a certain strength to know your environment and say, 'I can grow beyond it.'
