Ricky Gervais

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

Apparently, I don’t know if this is true but I hope it is, I’ve heard it from a few reports, when we went up to get our awards apparently Clint Eastwood turned to someone that he was with and went, (Clint impression) ‘Who the f**k are they?’

I hate lateness. I hate people who are late. There is no excuse for turning up late for anything. I’ve never been late for anything in my life. I was actually born a week premature, because I wanted to be early for my own birth. Being late is an insult to me.

We’re still trying to break records on the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid. I’ve just heard Bob Geldof has put Phil Collins on a jet to Philadelphia. There’s nothing going on there, we just don’t want him around this year. No I’m joking, of course we didn’t put him on a jet. We stuck him in a catapult. To be fair, he didn’t get very far. Although it worked in rehearsals when we used it on Chris De Burgh. I could do a whole routine about injuring Phil f**king Collins.

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.’

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.

I’ll be ready for it to happen and that way it won’t happen. It’s a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life.

When people come out of rehab, they usually go to secondary rehab for another six months and then enter back into society gradually. But I came out and did Top Of The Pops straight away!

Sarah Palin has been hired back by Fox News, and she only left five months ago. She has now effectively quit quitting. She can’t even commit to being uncommitted.

Welcome to The Daily Show, I am John Oliver. And let’s just acknowledge for a moment that this is weird. This looks weird. It feels weird. It even sounds weird. It sounds weird to me and this is my actual voice.

I grew up in Tennessee. We didn’t know what Louis Vuitton was. I had to order all my prom outfits out of catalogs.

I didn’t know how to throw a punch – why would I? Who knows how to throw a punch? Now I do it all the time, and it makes me feel strong.

We lived the life with Keith Moon. It was all Spinal Tap magnified a thousand times.

I feel like I represent normalcy in some way.

Most of the time you’re too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, ‘I work at ‘Saturday Night Live ‘ and that is so cool.

If you’re an actor and you don’t get cast in stuff a lot, then put together a show or hold play-reading nights at your apartment. Make your own opportunities.

I don’t fit the mold. In this country, success usually happens when you are 22 and six feet tall. Clearly, by asking that question they are kind of letting me know that I am an aberration.

I’ve always had problems with guys!

I don’t really see the point in washing your hair. If you don’t care if your hair’s clean or not then why would you wash it?

Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never mockeda disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him grovellingwhen he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!

The goal is to try and make the perfect song. Which of course will never happen.