I find it incredibly boring when people are mean about some individuals, especially if the individual has no power. I can understand how someone deems it necessary if somebody is in power to tear them down - I think that's really crucial. I make a lot of mean jokes about myself; as a theme, suffering seems to me a very interesting thing for comedy, but not the suffering of a particular individual.

I did throw a lot of eggs into one basket, as you do in your teenage years - 'I am buying these records, I am wearing this'. I did quite a bit of that. You have to do it, wear your stupid shoes, wear your stupid hair.

You see the button with the guy with the tray, and you push it, and he arrives with a sandwich! And you think: "Yes! Yes! I control sandwich monkey! I live in magic land, magic land, magic land"

Black Books adheres to a more old fashioned, traditional sitcom format, which I think works, because in its own way, it's quite theatrical.

I’ve always been a big consumer of American journalism over the years and had an interest in the history of it and of the press in America; how it has changed.

Go and lie down in the dark... for hours... and don't move. I'm locking the door now

The characters can't be wittier than people are in real life. They have to be character witty.