Ricky Gervais

“When I was about to be famous, I feared it on a few levels. I feared it because I didn't want people to lump me in with those people who'd do anything to be famous. I didn't like the word 'c...”

“I like flying to New York from London. It's like a day off for me. No phone or e-mails. Food, wine, iPod, movies, snoozing.”

“I think Spielberg is a master. I think 'Jaws' invented a genre.”

“I really just want to make Karl Pilkington the new messiah.”

“My dad was a laborer. And he used to get up at 5:30 every morning. He worked for 50 years of his life, in all weathers for, by showbiz standards, petty cash. I remind myself of that when I f...”

“I remember asking my mum when I was about 13, 'Why are my brothers and sister so much older than me?' And she just said, 'You were a mistake.' And I laughed.”

“I am myself sometimes, and I do state my opinions, but not in a comedy routine and not in my character. There always has to be some sort of layer to it.”

“Look, just tell me where that lemon came from and I'll shut up and go away.”

“I think all art - even one as lowly as making jokes about celebrities - is there to make a connection.”

“Luckily, even when people are shouting lies, the truth is undamaged. Science doesn't matter what you believe.”

“Stupidity without malice isn't horrible; some people can't help it.”

“If I just cut out the food, I'd have a six-pack. I'd look like Matthew McConaughey.”

“Stephen Merchant looks like a Muppet. I mean, he looks like Beaker.”

“I stand by 'I'm not going to do 'The Office' again.' That would be weird: all the same people sitting at the same desks at a paper merchant's in Slough.”

“I've got re-addicted to normal people, which is the loveliest thing to write about.”

“I was very protective of my privacy. I didn't want people to write bad things about me that weren't true, because that's just not fair. Fifty percent of everything written about me is wrong.”

“To be fair to David Brent, he wants to be famous for doing something, for being a musician, but he's just not good enough.”

“All of my friends are oddities.”

“I don't do one-liners, because you don't learn anything about that comedian.”

“I do the Golden Globes because they say I can say what I want. I wouldn't have that at the Oscars.”