Eric Idle Quotes
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I like the idea of being out there regularly with an audience and with a funny gang of people. That's what I grew up with - doing television, doing shows every week.
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I never think in terms of target audience. I try to write what makes me laugh, so I'm the target audience. I guess I just hope there's another person in America like me.
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I will jump on anybody's private plane at the drop of a hat. I'm an old-fashioned lower-middle-class boy.
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I was thrilled to win a Tony in 2005 for 'Spamalot'.
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I love being an older comic now. It's like being an old soccer or an old baseball player. You're in the Hall of Fame and it's nice, but you're no longer that person in the limelight on the spot doing that thing.
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We've discovered that the less we do, the more money we make.
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John Cleese once told me he'd do anything for money. So I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it.
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I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man.
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It just seems to me that there's no particular reason comedy albums should be dead. There's a lot to laugh at. We have very funny people, still.
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People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying.
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Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.
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It's such fun to take a lot of people and create something silly.
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Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.
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Talent is always more interesting - ambition is not interesting. If you have talent, you have to find ways of expressing it, but you may not be a success in the world's terms.
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My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly.
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Probably spending 12 years at boarding school - comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty.
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A website can be very time-intensive, but I'd love to have one where people can contribute to it - like invent islands and make their own flags, and their own laws. I think that'd be kind of fun.
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The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?
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I won't read scripts because I have a limited amount of time. Why should I help other people do lame stuff when I can just go out and put on lame stuff of my own?
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To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.
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I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.
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I've always found bad films more enjoyable than good ones.
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The dreadful thing about getting older is you cry at the drop of a hat.
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At least in America, you have freedom of speech, which is a good thing. It's just a question of whether you're allowed to use it on 'Fox News'.