Ricky Gervais

[On turning down the chance to appear in Ocean’s Twelve] Why say a couple of lines opposite Brad Pitt when I could be playing lead back home?

I did Jonathon Ross last year and he said ‘do people do impressions of David Brent?’ and I went ‘well, they can’t really because he’s such a normal bloke’. Then, after the show, me and Ross are walking through the car park and this bloke jumps out and goes ‘der-ner-ner-ner-ner’, does the David Brent dance and runs away. Jonathon Ross was in hysterics: ‘all that shit you came out with and then some bloke jumps out and runs away’. But on the whole it doesn’t really happen.

[about the showbiz lifestyle] It’s all too much trouble for me. It’s probably because I’m fat and lazy and old.

I remember when we were talking to one of the executives at the BBC. And he said, ‘Now hold on, this man (David Brent) is so incompetent why wouldn’t he be fired?’ and I said ‘Go and take a look around this building. Just go and knock on a few doors.’

[On Lord Of The Rings] I don’t like all this stupid Gollum begat Wobblo and the Oompa Loompas and…Oh Jesus Christ! There was too much “Oh, God, here come the gloodloys…” Christ Almighty, what are they talking about!?

[on animals] When I see a toreador in a bullfight getting gored I think: ‘Good, you shouldn’t be in there’. What is the pleasure in seeing an animal speared to death? It’s the same with fox hunting. They’re just psychopaths. I think I’ll end up doing something with animals – running a sanctuary or something.

A little bit independent in your walk. A little bit independent in your talk. There’s nothing like you in Paris or New York. You’re awfully easy on the eyes.

Love should be an inspiration, not an obligation.

I went up to his [Hank Jones’] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

You can tell an honest artist from one who’s just given all their songs.

The stuff I find attractive in women I always regret finding attractive. I always like a kind of madness in a woman… I like it when they hate me right from the beginning.

Freddie will have been dead for 20 years in November. I was staggered because it doesn’t seem possible that all that time has passed and I still miss him. He was my best friend, my best man. We shared so much and I owe so much to him.

Democracy is like a tambourine – not everyone can be trusted with it.’

I don’t have a sound bite for everything.

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillow.

There’s nothing I really wanted to do in life that I wasn’t able to get good at. That’s my skill. I’m not really specifically talented at anything except for the ability to learn. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m here for.

Thats the worst thing, I dont really care if people say I’m a bad actor, I can like work on that, but if they just say that he’s ugly thats just like “oh.. really?”

When I’m alone, I can sleep crossways in bed without an argument.

Our president-elect [Trump] has at various times said he’d bomb civilians, loot oil, and waterboard, which isn’t a military strategy so much as the series of words that Donald Rumsfeld mutters so he can stay hard while he’s masturbating.

A designer told me that my wife was a master of light and I was a master of time.

I come from a very small island which is packed with people. I mean, jam-packed with people. I’ve lived a life which has been pretty much full up with ambition, ideas, stimulus, creativity, some negativity which I try and avoid.