Billy Connolly Quotes

Wisdom isn't an old guy on top of a mountain in a loin cloth. It isn't an answer. It's a question.

I've always liked it here. Part of me is Irish. My family comes from the west coast, so whenever I come to Ireland I get a wee tingling in my heart that I'm where I belong.

A well-balanced person has a drink in each hand.

People die all the time. It's just that you're not around.

I think comedy is difficult, and I'm amazed so many people want to do it. I'll be buying jeans and somebody will say, "I'm a comedian" - the guy selling you the jeans. The desire to be a comedian is weird. I found it weird myself to want to be one; I was a schoolboy when I wanted to be one but I didn't know how to do it. That was 50 years ago, so times have changed greatly. There seems to be a long line of people desperate to do it and most of them are quite good.

I've never done a comedy club in my life. It's weird because I don't have the same background as most comics. I don't have a history of going up and only doing eight minutes.

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.

If you're going to do an interview about a movie or anything like that, you're vulnerable. You say stupid things. Or if you're applying for a green card you feel very vulnerable and you're likely to spout out something stupid in the middle of it all.

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'm a big fan of the Mars Bar Diet. You don't eat the Mars bar, you stick it up your arse and let a rottweiler chase you home.

Try to live in a place you like.

I'm a citizen of the world. I like it that way. The world's a wonderful. I just think that some people are pretty badly represented. But when you speak to the people themselves they're delightful. They all want so little.

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

I love Scotland and I speak about it a lot, so people think I'm desperate to go back. They just take it upon themselves to say I'm going back, but I'm not. I'd rather concentrate on becoming a citizen of the world.

Revolution was written into the U.S. Constitution so it's like they're in a constant state of revolution. But then again, happiness is written into their constitution as well, which makes them pretty unique.

I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.

Don't tell me how to do my job. I don't come to your workplace and tell you how to sweep up.

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares?... He's a mile away and you've got his shoes!

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. They're not huge, complicated events; they're just magical wee moments when somebody says 'I love you' or 'You're a really good at what you do' or simply 'You're a good person'.

I like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. I also like the Scottish artist John Byrne, another surrealist.

I hate all those weathermen, too, who tell you that rain is bad weather. There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.

What always staggers me is that when people blow their noses, they always look into their hankies to see what came out. What do they expect to find?

It seems to me that Islam and Christianity and Judaism all have the same god, and he's telling them all different things.

Learn to feel sorry for music because, although it is the international language, it has no swear words.

I don't know why I should have to learn Algebra... I'm never likely to go there.

I'd always been scared of people with tertiary education and high intellects in case they found me wanting. I thought they viewed me as just a welder who knew a few jokes.

There's nothing better than a fight, especially when you're watching it from a safe place. You can yell encouragement! Hit him with the left, he's a big Jessie!

I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days.

Why are there no windows in the toilets on aeroplanes? To protect you from the most dedicated perverts on the planet, hanging off the wing to get a peep?

Nothing means anything here. When they pull down an outstanding building, no one objects. Oh, maybe there's a wee protest from some collectors or something who take a picture of it before it vanishes.

Tread gently on anyone who looks at you sideways.

There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.

Once you become successful, people know where you live, the type of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, and so it would be patronising to go and talk like a welder. Welding's a mystery to me now. You can't go back, your life changes every day.

I started to draw desert islands. They were just rough, shapes in the middle of the page. Then I began drawing shapes within those shapes and I was amazed how quickly the islands got better. It took off from there.

Scotland has the only football team in the world that does a lap of disgrace.

A lot of people are too easily offended. Religious people, for instance. They've been offending other people for centuries.

Well, the film's not only pricking the pomposity of the Church, it's pricking the pomposity, and sometimes you would think fraudulence, of the insurance companies. I had never read anything like this until I was doing the film, but Mark [Joffe, the director] and people showed me stuff where, like a flood, it mattered where the water came from. If you're flooded from above, you get the money; if you're flooded from below, you don't. What's that about?

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

I was brought up a Catholic, for that you get an A level in guilt.

I'd never consciously left home to see a zombie movie. They were fine by me, but I had no intention of ever being in one. But I've been learning more about it as I've been doing interviews. I didn't even know there were specialist zombie magazines and clubs. I heard the other day that a radio station had asked people if they`d made preparations for an attack by zombies, and a staggering number of people replied yes!

Don't work out, work in.

Avoid people who say they know the answer. Keep the company of people who are trying to understand the question.

Did your mother never tell you not to drink on an empty head?

Politically correct is the language of cowardice.

Oh aye...my Father would thrash me every now and then. He'd talk while he did it too! He'd hit me and shout, 'Have ye had enough?' Had enough? Whit kind of question is that? 'Why, Father, would another kick in the balls be out of the question???'

So, have you heard about the oyster who went to a disco and pulled a mussel?

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

When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks, "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here?