I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

Everything in comedy's got to be exactly right, which is why making a comedic film is kind of a difficult process, because, for most of the two years of shooting it and editing it and reshooting and all of that, it's not quite right. And it's only when you just at the end, you put the final polish on it, it becomes really funny again.

When people say 'I'm not a prude, but ...' what they mean is 'I am a prude, and ...'.

I think the hard thing for young comedians is that the majority of the young people in the audience out there don't have the wide range of references.

Would you take a billion dollars, if as part of the deal the Earth were made uninhabitable a year after your death? ... well, of course not; you care about your friends, above all your children, any grandchildren. But ... what if the deal calls for the planet to be poisoned a thousand years later? We feel strong obligations to generations in the near future - should we not feel the same way about our children's great-grandchildren and generations beyond them?

My mum died about three years ago at the age of 101, and just towards the end, as she began to run out of energy, she did actually stop trying to tell me what to do most of the time.

All humour is critical, you know? You make stupid jokes. I mean, stupidity is an infirmity, isn't it?