Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I was a little boy, I was fascinated by the way my dad used to laugh at the telly, and from a very early age, I had an idea of what was funny and why people laughed.
It gets slightly daunting if you're watching the telly and everybody's gorgeous. It's just so rubbish. And I'm grateful that it's not so much anymore - it's great to see.
Cheese is one of the world's great foodstuffs and I speak as someone who would once happily snarf a packet of American-style cheese singles in front of the telly on my own.
I like to get up and get out. Otherwise you end up kicking about, and it's easy to flick the telly on; then before you know it, it is 11 A.M. and you haven't done anything.
I always said it was a privilege to end up on the television. It wasn't my ambition; I fell into editing magazines and writing about cars, and then I ended up on the telly.
The best job was when I was at drama school and I cleaned flats in the Barbican. I loved it. They were spotless anyway, so you'd just watch the telly and flick a duster around.
I like the fact that in the theatre nothing is ever finished because you're going to do it all over again tomorrow, whereas in telly once it's wrapped and in the can, that's it.
When I wind someone up, it's never to make them feel angry or aggressive; that doesn't make good telly. It's about uncovering a layer of themselves that is kind of sweet and nice.
When I got a telly we had no aerial, but I discovered that if I or one of the children stood by it you could get a picture. So I had to make a statue that could stand by the telly.
I was the youngest of three brothers by five years, so I spent most of my childhood playing alone, being Zorro or some other superhero, doing Lego, watching telly and riding my bike.
I did a picture 40 years ago with Carroll O'Connor and Telly Savalas, God rest their souls, and Clint Eastwood, called 'Kelly's Heroes,' which we filmed in Yugoslavia for six months.
I don't watch much telly, the telly hardly goes on, but the things I do watch are sort of nature programs, and something about the oceans and the amount of weird fish that's in there.
'RuPaul's Drag Race' is a show about love, art, passion, acceptance, and the quest for finding America's next drag superstar. No show on the telly box has more grit than these queens.
You know when you get into that thing where people want to discuss the relationship? I'd rather discuss what was on telly, avoid the issue, discuss anything other than the relationship.
Turn up your radio. Watch lots of telly and eat loads of choc. Feel guilty. Stay up all night. Learn everything in six hours that has taken you two years to compile. That's how I did it.
When we first did 'Big Night Out,' there was no chance of someone doing a little show in a pub then being on telly. There was a little Oxbridge route in and an old-fashioned variety route.
I don't think I'm any different on 'Celebrity Juice' or daytime telly. It's what's going on around me that's different. I don't suddenly become all outrageous and rude on 'Celebrity Juice.'
Middle-aged women on telly is a bit of a hot topic - before, we were 27 to 37, and now we're 40 to 50. You do notice as you get older... you go past 35, and suddenly you're playing baddies.
Put me on telly, and I think I have a relaxation on camera that makes an audience relax, too. It's not a conscious thing. Cameras don't bother me, whereas other people try to perform to them.
I don't think I'd want to be a comedian today if I saw it on the telly. I wouldn't think it was a thing for weirdoes and drop-outs; I'd think it was a thing for squares who wanted to be famous.
I don't want a chat show or to be on telly every day, as that's not my business; my business is standing in front of people and making them laugh, and I want to see how far I can get with that.
But I quite like that the public has a very short attention span. If I haven't been on telly for a little bit, I can sense it. People don't take as much notice of you, it's really quite palpable.
I am the kind to sit in front of the telly for hours. In fact, my parents and I are addicted to food shows. We can watch them endlessly. People who have seen us like, this call us a crazy family.
Despite being a business journalist at the BBC for ten years, working behind the scenes on our high-profile news programmes, I was viewed by some in the organisation to be 'too common for telly.'
I spent as much time watching telly and films when I was a kid as I did lying around reading books. I think it's crazy that writers are only allowed to say that certain books have influenced them.
When you look at me on the telly and say, 'She should be on 'The Undateables,'' you are looking at a 59-year-old woman. That is what 59-year-old women who have not had work done look like. Get it?
It takes time and energy, and if I'm working, then I'd rather flop in front of the telly than put on a tiny dress and work out how to get myself to God knows where. I mean, lazy some would call it.
At the time I left film school there wasn't a lot of hope for young film-makers. It was a calling card of film school to be quite slick and commercial, which might lead to getting some stuff on telly.
It definitely puts a strain on family life - I miss them like mad. Being a working mother I've been juggling house and career from day one. I want to hold out for telly for the second half of the year.
When I was young, I saw some of my heroes doing it on the telly. We're talking about Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Arthur Lowe, Ian McKellan, Kenneth Williams. These were all guys telling stories to me.
All my interesting stories are from before I was on television. Nothing interesting has happened to me since then. Maybe it's because the most interesting thing in my life is the show and that's on telly.
Without that real spectacle of a big, noisy St James' Park or Old Trafford or the Emirates, the certain beauty of watching a game of football even live on the telly is not the same as far as I'm concerned.
When I first started in telly, I had a lot of negative comments... but then I suddenly realised I couldn't be anyone else and actually the bits where I mess up or I'm just me seem to be the things that work.
Every time we pick up a book from a sense of duty and we find that we're struggling to get through it, we reinforce the notion that reading is something we should do, but telly is something that we want to do.
I didn't expect to enjoy my work as much as I do and when you enjoy something it's hard to say no. But I could sit on the sofa and do nothing for weeks. I'd watch telly, I'd eat, I'd go online, I'd be so happy!
I don't have a problem with the concept of a box set per se - we have many of them merrily lined up on the shelf above the telly. No, what gives me the pip is the fact that I'm never going to watch any of them.
I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.
Twitter is a really interesting, useful tool. In lots of ways, it's an exciting place to be. But it's also a megaphone for the kinds of things people used to shout at their telly - and now they send you a message.
I know there have been some catastrophically unpopular programmes on television over the years. Has it ever got to the point where the only person still interested in what's happening is the person who's on the telly?
Theatre has always been better disposed to colourblind casting than telly or film. Given that most television is contemporary, and it reaches 56 million people, I am disappointed there still isn't more representation.
I hate that thing that if you are over 45, and you're going to be on telly or make films, you have to do all this stupid stuff to your face. I would no more let someone stick a needle in my forehead than fly to the moon.
Show business is not conducive to mental stability. It's a constant rollercoaster of adrenaline spikes and devastating let-downs. There's something about seeing a face from the telly in real life that makes people deranged.
On telly, if it's not the right kind of show, I revert back to my 'Girlie Show' persona, become this daft, bawdy caricature of myself and I'm not actually like that, I'm actually quite - not clever, but smart with my words.
I'm aware families sit around the telly to watch 'Vera', which is making entertainment out of murder. But I don't enjoy reading about people's pain. I tend to put myself in that position, and it's not somewhere I want to be.
I constantly think I'll be found out any second. Some of the crazy stuff that goes through your head. Once you've moved on from the scene, that's it: it's going in the telly and there's nowt you can do about it! It's really scary.
When I watched the Premier League on the telly, I didn't expect it to be that hard. The opponents are all physically strong, real athletes. It wasn't like that in Germany. You must be prepared for it. But I prepared myself for it.
At yoga you get some sense of spiritual space so that people don't intrude. You can go there and close your eyes and no one will talk to you. People are too worried about not fainting to bother with some bloke who was on the telly.
I always wanted to get on the telly. Then see when I did, and there was talk about doing more online, Comedy Labs or iPlayer, I was: 'Naw, naw, naw, I want to be On The Telly that sits in the living room and folk watch it together.
There are times when I think, if I were a bit more famous, life could be easier in terms of work because producers want bums on seats, and they're going to get bums on seats if they get a name, if you have had that series on telly.
I love nature - it's probably my most favorite thing. I don't watch much telly, the telly hardly goes on, but the things I do watch are sort of nature programs, and something about the oceans and the amount of weird fish that's in there.