Paul Merton

“I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedication, tunnel vision, pursuit of perfection, getting the gag right.”

“There's something magical about film, it's the ultimate for me, because it's kind of permanent - inasmuch as anything is. When I went to see Buster Keaton when I was about 14 and I came out...”

“If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating.”

“I was trying to organise my DVDs into a sort of chronological order, and I am afraid that it all trailed off after the Sixties.”

“When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil service, I really think I've won.”

“I was flying to the Maldives in 2000 when the plane went through turbulence - after that, I didn't fly for four years. Then a job came up in India, so I did a simulator flight and learnt abo...”

“The economics favour one-man comedy shows: all you need is one person, a microphone and a PA system. But I'm pleased so many people are making a living out of comedy - it's a wonderful busin...”

“I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can't understand is, if they don't know who you are, how do...”

“All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds - I can't stand Noel Edmonds.”

“In 1987, I was in Edinburgh doing my first one-man show. I took part in a kickabout with some fellow comedians and tripped over my trousers and heard this cracking sound in my leg. A couple...”

“Beginning with a trip out to Ellis Island, I saw for myself where thousands of European immigrants took their first steps onto American soil, bringing with them nothing but their ambition: p...”

“When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of humour. I don't mean - well, maybe I do - laugh at the hangman as he puts the noose around y...”

“When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'd eat ten daily - marvellous.”

“On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't he said, 'Do you mind if I mug you here?'.”

“I have never sold my story, done 'Hello!' magazine, any of that stuff. I'm not guilty of exploiting my private life for cash and then saying, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about my private life....”

“And like the old stereotype, I overcame my shyness by making my friends laugh.”

“It was a bizarre existence I led in my early twenties - that cliche of the comedian who goes out and entertains a roomful of people and then goes home to a lonely bedsit was unbelievably poi...”

“At one point in the mid-Eighties I shared a promoter with the Smiths. One night, we were sitting backstage when Morrissey burst in, utterly distraught, sobbing his heart out. Turns out someo...”

“In a psychiatric hospital, a lot of people believe that people on TV are talking to them directly through the screen. I'm with about 500 of these people, and I'm on TV every Friday night. As...”

“My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some indication of the misery I've endured over the past twenty-five years.”