I’ve come in and out of America for… well, I’ve lived here for 15 years. And I’ve played here for nearly 30 years. On and off. But I’ve always played to my fan base. And I can come and do two or three nights in New York or two or three nights in L.A., and all that. But when I go away, nobody knows I’ve been gone. You know, I don’t get reviewed or anything like that. So that’s why I’ve come back and done a longer time in a smaller place, in New York. It’s always the people who live here that get a chance to know me.

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

Who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time?

Fame is being asked to sign your autograph on the back of a cigarette packet.

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

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?

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