Ricky Gervais Quotes

I think the best advice I'd say to any actor when you do comedy is play it straight.

I used to believe in God. The Christian one, that is (There are a few thousand to choose from. But I was born in a country where the dominant religion was Christianity so I believed in that one. Isn't it weird how that always happens?). Luckily I was also interested in science and nature. And reason and logic. And honesty and truth. And equality and fairness. By the age of eight I was an atheist.

I'm not a person that's easily embarrassed, but I'm embarrassed for other people.

I've worked in an office. People are sitting down doing their stuff, or pretending to do their stuff, and they're bored. I've heard a car tire screech and 30 people went to the window. That was a piece of excitement in their day, that a car might have had to stop quickly, you know. You don't need dinosaurs, you know.

A Christian telling an atheist they're going to hell is as scary as a child telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa.

If you pay attention to good critics, you have to listen to the bad. So you have to ignore them all really. You can't just cherry pick the glowing ones.

My ideal meal would probably be the cheesiest pasta or pizza, followed by something creamy and chocolaty. I mean, just the worst things, really.

Daniel Day-Lewis would play me as a baby. He can do anything. Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt are fighting out for me now. And Meryl Streep will play me after the sex change. I haven't told you about that, have I?

Famous people are above the law.

To complain about critics in a business is like a sailor complaining about the waves. Go back to the beach if you don't like it.

I think everyone has the ability to be loved.

That’s the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity.

You can just keep getting it worse until you have to pull back and let the audience breathe. But yeah, I really love digging.

Just looking at all the faces here reminds me of some of the great work that was done this year . . . by cosmetic surgeons.

I've got the attention span of a child.

When someone thanks God, I don't get offended.

I never think of myself as a celebrity - or even an actor, actually. I think of myself as a writer-director.

Same-sex marriage is not a gay privilege, it's equal rights.

I use people's real voices because I want realism. So often I mention the actors' physicality because I want it to be like a real documentary.

Know your limitations and be content with them. Too much ambition results in promotion to a job you can't do.

I think sometimes you get given a good pile of goodwill, and it's whether you use it up in the first six months or spread it out over a career.

If all the Atheists & Agnostics left America, they'd lose 93% of The National Academy of Sciences & less than 1% of the prison population.

My favourite shows of the year are House of Cards, the Scandinavian versions of The Killing and The Bridge, and my guilty pleasure is everything MMA. Ultimate Fighter is amazing.

When you think of things like The Sopranos, The Wire, Damages, they are beating film on a regular basis. Most films are terrible. It's only the 2% that are good. There's things you can do on TV which you can't do on film. There is something about those episodic, serialisations that are grand and operatic.

I don't believe in about 2700 Gods. Christians don't believe in 2699 Gods. They're nearly as atheistic as me.

Mondays are fine. It's your life that sucks

You want to see the people you've sort of come to know and love, or love to hate, you want to see them develop in some way. And I hope people get sort of caught up in that arc.

I can't stand it. I can't stand someone being embarrassed. I don't know why. If someone slips over and the first thing they do is look around, I pretend I haven't seen it.

Telling someone with depression to pull themselves together is about as useful as telling someone with cancer to just stop having cancer

Next time someone tells me they believe in God, I'll say 'Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?...' If they say 'Just God. I only believe in the one God,' I'll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don't believe in 2,870 gods, and they don't believe in 2,869.

I'm not from around these parts. I'm from a little place called England: we used to run the world before you.

Piracy doesn't kill music, boy bands do.

I still see myself as a bit of a cottage industry. Being in a room creating stuff and seeing if anyone wants it, as opposed to going to work for someone.

The next time someone is critical of you, just take a moment to consider their life. Then smile to yourself.

That's what being nervous and sort of out of your comfort zone does. It's the same in "The Office" when a black guy comes to the office and all he thinks is `I better show this guy I'm not a racist.' So what does he do? Only talks about black issues.

I'm a militant fundamentalist atheist. I'm going to get on a crowded train, unbutton my coat and say rational things. People will be hurt.

If I do eat meat, it's got to be ethical. I want to know that it lived a great life before it was killed humanely.

People confuse the subject of the joke with the target of the joke, and they're very rarely the same.

I was okay with singing. I always sneak a song into everything I do. Dancing, a little awkward. Little embarrassed about that. I don't move well. But I was with a frog, so it doesn't matter. I'll do anything with a frog, that's my motto. He's great with tap-dancing or flap-dancing on my head. So no one's going to be looking at me when we're doing that dance. They're going to be saying, 'There's a frog dancing'.

I've probably done the odd thing. I've probably done more than I would have done and some things you don't say no to. You don't say no to working with "The Simpsons"... the greatest comedy show on television. You mustn't. Even though going to my bad judgment, I remember saying that all I can do is make this show slightly worse.

I think the job of a comedian is to make people laugh, but also challenge them to laugh at things they didn't know they could until now.

The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.

I don't think a comedian should even be concerned with being cool or sexy, as soon as you do, you aren't a comedian any more. Looks are still the most important thing for women when it comes to meeting a partner. And that's fair enough, but a sense of humour is really important too. For starters, it's a great indicator of whether you are going to get on. If the first time you go on a date you don't find each other funny, there's a fundamental problem.

We didn't evolve; God made us. So I just want to explain to you exactly how that happened... Some of the things you'll hear do sound a little bit far-fetched. I admit that. Then I found out that the other name for The Bible is The Gospel, so it is all true. Luckily, the clue is in the title.

America champions the underdog. We champion the underdog until he's not the underdog anymore, and he annoys us.

People have let me down in the past. I've loved something, and it's become a disgrace. I'd rather start again.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god (or gods). It makes no claim. It merely rejects the claim that a god (or gods) exists. Nothing more.