Eric Idle Quotes

You initially become funny as a kid because you're looking for attention and love. Psychologists think that's all to do with mother abandonment. I think John Cleese has his depressions, and Terry Gilliam's the same. All of us together make one completely insane person.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

I have been very blessed in my life and rewarded with good friends and good health. I am grateful and happy to be able to share this.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

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?

- Eric Idle

John Cleese once told me he'd do anything for money. So I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying.

- Eric Idle

I was thrilled to win a Tony in 2005 for 'Spamalot'.

- Eric Idle

I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.

- Eric Idle

The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?

- Eric Idle

The dreadful thing about getting older is you cry at the drop of a hat.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.

- Eric Idle

I'm more surprised than anyone that 'Spamalot's done so well. You can never predict what's going to be a hit.

- Eric Idle

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.

- Eric Idle

I do pool exercises, like weightlifting but underwater. I walk, I swim... I'm pretty fit for an old bloke.

- Eric Idle

Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.

- Eric Idle

I love stage work. The thing about plays is that they're perfectible. With film, you shoot that take and maybe another. During 'Spamalot,' I rewrote Act II three times.

- Eric Idle

I've always found bad films more enjoyable than good ones.

- Eric Idle

Life took over 4 billion years to evolve into you, and you've about 70 more years to enjoy it. Don't just pursue happiness, catch it.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.

- Eric Idle

I will jump on anybody's private plane at the drop of a hat. I'm an old-fashioned lower-middle-class boy.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

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'.

- Eric Idle

Nobody gets irony anymore, as we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, our irony is dead.

- Eric Idle

I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man.

- Eric Idle

I like being a foreigner. For me, to live in California is very pleasant - I'm more comfortable not feeling a part of everything, not feeling responsible for the government or the roads or the health system.

- Eric Idle

If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

I'm drawn to things that aren't particularly popular at the time. I don't know why.

- Eric Idle

It's such fun to take a lot of people and create something silly.

- Eric Idle

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.

- Eric Idle

We've discovered that the less we do, the more money we make.

- Eric Idle