Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
William Hague, the world's favourite hairline.
To get to do a West End play is once in a lifetime chance.
My first public impression was my French teacher, Derek Swift.
Politics now is rather like going into Starbucks for a coffee.
If the oil runs out, we'll be reduced to fracking Alex Salmond.
Politics in Scotland is far too important to be taken seriously.
Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!
Now I'm instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.
I had an Edinburgh, middle-class childhood and a public school education.
People may say that what I do is very clever, but it's not really at all. It's not Swift.
I am just fascinated by this reassurance from a menacing figure. It is rather frightening.
I've no idea what they make of me. People usually don't recognise themselves in an impression.
It frustrates me when my mind wanders and when I end up reading the same words again and again.
A lot of what I do - I have to try and make sense of things before I can make nonsense of them.
I'm much more used to the TV shows, which are demanding to write and perform but very fulfilling.
Like millions of Scots, I've agonised over whether to go for independence or remain with the Union.
I have never been good at doing impressions of women. Which is understandable. There's a gender issue.
British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.
I can't look at John Prescott without thinking of Les Dawson, and Robin Cook is a caricature of himself.
I think I probably tend to make life hard for myself by taking on too many things. I call it plate spinning.
It's no wonder the Tory Party opposed identity cards, since so many of them struggle to find an identity at all.
Tony Blair has always said he will be judged by history. Now Alastair Campbell is history we await his judgment.
Being a great believer in Scottish tradition, I followed the example of my fellow countrymen and moved to England.
It is almost impossible to say the name of Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawat without adding 'give a dog a bone'
Location is everything, I'd rather camp in the Lake District or Scotland than sit in a five-star hotel in Frankfurt.
I don't have olive skin. Nobody could tell from my skin that I'm Mediterranean. I'm quite fair, and I do burn easily.
Scotland needs comedy more than ever. With the independence debate, finally after 300 years, reaching room temperature.
In a more intellectually rigorous age, I wouldn't be talked about as a satirist at all. I would just be a topical comedian.
I'd done an Edinburgh show before, in 1981, called 'The Importance of Being Varnished' - I was in the pun trade at the time.
I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is.
I am more relaxed at home in Scotland, and my children are of an age where I want us, as a family, to spend more time up here.
My mum called me scatty because I could never sit still. But there was no sense I was suffering from a medical condition as such.
I think if there is a God, it's very important that he has a sense of humour - otherwise, you are in for a very miserable afterlife.
When I did 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune' I think it was accepted that comedians can contest the arguments just as well as journalists.
In truth, I barely knew my father at all. He was 53 when I was born, and when I was ten he contracted cancer. Eight years later, in 1979, he died.
I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider.
Just when exactly does the Millennium begin? Some say 1999, some say 2000, and some say 2001. You wait a thousand years for one, and three turn up at once.
For such a small country, Britain packs in an amazing diversity of landscapes: coastline, lakes, mountains, rolling countryside, villages and great cities.
I've never felt entirely comfortable in high society. I'm more comfortable talking to the bar staff than the super-rich. I don't really get what makes them tick.
When I was growing up, there were just the three channels, so as a nation we all sat down to the same meal at the end of the day. Now there's been this explosion.
It's a new world that's very, very difficult to make sense of. But we have a new hope. We have a new man. America has now elected its first openly black President.
When George Bush finally leaves the White House, the satire industry will briefly join the rest of the economy in recession. It will certainly be the end of an era.
Anyone who wants to promote a car or a football tournament turns to opera. There's a much greater public connection than the image of plush corporate boxes would suggest.
I don't think my life would be significantly poorer if I don't impersonate Nick Clegg. Life is short enough without sitting up night after night listening to tapes of him.
I think comedy and satire are a very important part of democracy, and it's important we are able to laugh at the idiosyncrasies or the follies or vanities of people in power.
If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.
I remember when Tony Blair came into office, and there was a sense I was thinking, 'Well, what on Earth am I going to do now?' until I realized that's exactly what he was thinking.
When you consider what Tony Blair was saying about liberty, human rights and that sort of thing, it would be terribly revolutionary to sell the speeches he and Jack Straw made in 1994.
I like the idea of people coming to opera for the first time and finding it an enjoyable experience. I don't like the fact that opera is seen as elitist and all black ties and that stuff.
I'm supposed to be the director of a television company, but I've only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.