Here's a guy [Richard Nixon] who had no gift for small talk, never liked to be around strangers, was physically awkward, and he goes into the one business that calls for ease with strangers and a gift for small talk.

I've got an odd, negative bond with C. Montgomery Burns. He reminds a lot of people of bosses they've worked for. He certainly reminds me of someone I'm working for.

You're not just looking for laughs, but you're trying to do the characters first, and then the laughs come afterwards.

I was never into candy and games and clowns.

I think the British learn their history through the prism of this gallery of grotesques known as the royals.

Privilege has its own way of seeing the world. It's not about the kind of people they are; it's about the situation they're in.

[The word class has] been excised from the acceptable political vocabulary, except in the limited usage of right-wingers when they accuse liberals of inciting 'class warfare' - a charge that means it's okay for rich people to vote their economic interests but it's not all right to encourage poor people to do so.