Ricky Gervais

I grew up watching fantastic mainstream comedies like ‘Porridge’ and ‘Rising Damp’. There are some mainstream things I love.

[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.

[on turning down a role in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’] I didn’t really fancy sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles for nine weeks for two minutes on screen, to be honest. I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to write and direct. I’ve been offered about ten British films. Obviously all shit. I was offered one with Johnny Depp, but again, it was a small character part, and I thought, ‘What’s the point?’ No one’s ever watched someone in seven films for one minute and said, ‘Yeah, give him his own film’…it doesn’t happen.”

There’s nothing wrong with getting 20 million viewers, but I think there’s something wrong with aiming at getting 20 million viewers, because then you have to take away all the things that will offend, and you’ll end up with something so anodyne that it just washes over you for half an hour. I imagine The Office was also one of the most hated shows on television, that some people passionately hated it. But that’s better, for me. David Bowie said that after Let’s Dance, which is his biggest album ever and obviously not his best, he was doing these stadium gigs and looked out at the audience and suddenly realized that he had Phil Collins fans instead of Iggy Pop fans. And that’s how I feel about everything I do: I want Iggy Pop fans.

I’ve been offered a part in Alias and I’m going to do it. I love Alias, it’s great and JJ Abrams is writing me a part especially. It’s just whether I can do it or not – it’s got to be the right time, the right project, it’s got to be fun, it’s got to be worth it and it mustn’t be bad for my career. Most people go ‘it’ll do, it’s work and it’ll make me a bit more famous’ or ‘the money’s good’ but I just think I’ve never regretted saying no. But a lot of people have regretted saying yes.

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

His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.

Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.

[On Roberts saying ‘I don’t know if I want to give up my whole management company and take it apart.’] Don’t be stupid. I’ll make you more money than you’ve made alone.

The man who never has money enough to pay his debts has too much of something else.

The lack of money is the root of all evils.

I’m bout this shmoney!

Bankers are just like anybody else, only richer

In God we trust; all others must pay cash.

Money isn’t everything, but it’s a long way ahead of what comes next.

The only point in making money is, you can tell some big shot where to go.

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in the world. Now that I’m old . . . I know it is.

Most of the artists were trying to make a living, trying to get laid, trying to figure out who they were. They weren’t trying to change the world. That’s what other people put on them. I knew all those people. I knew them all, intimately and well. Bob Dylan. I would say that Bob Dylan is as interested in money as any person I’ve known in my life. That’s just the truth.

Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you’re just as graveyard dead as he is.

A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.