It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certai...
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It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.
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As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the Nineties, do I regret it? Not really. It was ...
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As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the Nineties, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
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Television as the nation's fireplace, the hearth and the heart of the country, the focus of our comm...
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Television as the nation's fireplace, the hearth and the heart of the country, the focus of our communal cultural identity, that television is surely dead. It seems unlikely ever to return. Instead of being the nation's fireplace, TV is closer to being the nation's central heating. It's conveniently on in every room, it's less discernible, less of a focus, more of an ambient atmosphere.
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The BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to bu...
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The BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to build it back up again. We actually can afford the BBC, because we can't afford not to. I genuinely cannot see that the nation would benefit from a diminution of any part of the BBC's great whole. It should be as closely scrutinized as possible of course, value for money, due humility and all that, but to reduce its economies of scale, its artistic social and national reach for misbegotten reasons of ideology or thrift would be a tragedy.
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Happiness is no respecter of persons.
Happiness is no respecter of persons.
Self-pity will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leaves only itself.
Self-pity will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leaves only itself.
We're human beings like everybody else and we believe first and foremost in love. At least 260 speci...
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We're human beings like everybody else and we believe first and foremost in love. At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behaviour but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behaviour - and that's the human being. So ask which is really natural. There are other faiths like Quakers and Congregationalists and Unitarians and the Liberal Reform part of the Jewish faith who are actually extremely keen. They feel their communion won't be complete unless it includes gay marriage because they believe in social justice and equality too. It's wrong, in a country like ours, which has an established Church, just because their more extreme end is screeching with outrage at the idea of this, that we are not allowed to be married. It's unfair on plenty of other religious people and it is misrepresenting what we require, which is only the same as anybody else, and that's to express our love in the fullest possible way of commitment.
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I love television in this country. I love the range and richness of the programming. I love its ambi...
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I love television in this country. I love the range and richness of the programming. I love its ambition, its scope, its innovation. I love the tradition, the technological innovation, the gossip, the corporate drama on the inside, the reach and influence on the outside. I admire the talent and the commitment of so many working in the field. I love everything about what television has been, what it still is and what it might yet be. If I criticise anything about it, I hope you will be able to see that I do so as with nationhood, from the point of view of love not enmity.
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Most sodomy, most anal intercourse takes place between men and women.
Most sodomy, most anal intercourse takes place between men and women.
The day life has so little to offer that I read the next Shirley MacLaine book, disembowel me.
The day life has so little to offer that I read the next Shirley MacLaine book, disembowel me.
On being gay: "My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother and said, 'that's the...
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On being gay: "My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother and said, 'that's the last time I'm going up one of those.'"
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To repatriate a power takes treaties, rows, enmities, alliances and betrayals. To repatriate a colle...
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To repatriate a power takes treaties, rows, enmities, alliances and betrayals. To repatriate a collection of stolen marbles take good will, moral courage and a decisive belief that right can be done. How can we British be proud until we sit down with Greek politicians and arrange for the return of their treasure? It's time we lost our marbles.
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It is quite difficult to feel that I am placed somewhere between Alan Bennett and the Queen Mother, ...
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It is quite difficult to feel that I am placed somewhere between Alan Bennett and the Queen Mother, a sort of public kitten.
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[in support of a proposed ban of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics because of anti-gay legislation in R...
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[in support of a proposed ban of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics because of anti-gay legislation in Russia] I am gay. I'm a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler's anti-semitism. Every time in Russia - and it is constantly - a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian 'correctively' raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I, for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.
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I was really, really knocked for six by the death of Robin Williams. Far more talented [than me] but...
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I was really, really knocked for six by the death of Robin Williams. Far more talented [than me] but a similar track of cocaine and alcohol use and then he stopped and then very recently, very recently, as we know, he could take it no more. A man who gave such extraordinary pleasure and even the films people criticised him for, the slightly sentimental ones, were because that's how he was, he was such a soft, sweet, kind man. I've seen him in rooms being more funny than all collective comedians put together in history have been. It's not that he was funny, he "was" funny. Whatever funniness is, he was it.
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It has a new meaning when it's the 'we' in 'wed'.
It has a new meaning when it's the 'we' in 'wed'.
I have a great interest in zoology. There are 480 species of animal that exhibit homosexual behaviou...
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I have a great interest in zoology. There are 480 species of animal that exhibit homosexual behaviour but only one species of animal on earth that exhibits homophobic behaviour. So which is normal?
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I don't pretend to be a businessman. Spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations make me want to screa...
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I don't pretend to be a businessman. Spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations make me want to scream, gouge out my eyes and stab my ears. I have never been able to read a profit and loss account or a balance sheet, and I go swimmy and feel sick if I have to read a legal document because on the whole I'd rather watch television.
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It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in com...
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It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common.
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Just as I was leaving prison, starting simultaneously my period on probation and at University, the ...
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Just as I was leaving prison, starting simultaneously my period on probation and at University, the way you do, the wind changed and Margaret Thatcher, the new Mary Poppins, descended into Downing Street, with new medicines for us to take, but very few spoonfuls of sugar to help them go down. I am not going to blame her or make political points. The wind had changed and she blew in with it and would one day be blown away by another change. But here she was and fundamental questions were asked, genuinely radical unthinkable thoughts were thought in an age of privatisation and anti-dirigiste, anti-statist conservatism.
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My poor husband has to put up with the fact that BAFTA comes first.
My poor husband has to put up with the fact that BAFTA comes first.
It is true that I have a great admiration, sometimes only just short of reverence, for the elegances...
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It is true that I have a great admiration, sometimes only just short of reverence, for the elegances and brilliances that have emerged from my favourite address in the world: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, the home of Apple Computers.
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[re his mental problems] If unmedicated, there are times when I am so exuberant, so hyper, that I ca...
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[re his mental problems] If unmedicated, there are times when I am so exuberant, so hyper, that I can go three or four nights without sleeping and I'm writing and I'm doing stuff and I'm so grandiose and so full of self-belief that it's almost impossible to deal with me. I can't stop speaking, I'm incredible, I go on shopping sprees...Fortunately one of the common signs of mania, or hyper-mania as it is known, is sexual exhibitionism. I don't have that as one of my brands, but others do. ...There are times when I'm going 'ha ha, yeah yeah' and inside I'm going 'I want to f***ing die. I...want...to...f***ing...die. The fact that I am lucky enough not to have it [mental illness] so seriously doesn't mean that I won't one day kill myself, I may well.
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Inevitable George Entwistle would fall on his sword. Damned for stopping a Newsnight (1980), damned ...
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Inevitable George Entwistle would fall on his sword. Damned for stopping a Newsnight (1980), damned for allowing one. A kind, wise man. Heigh ho.
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To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily t...
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To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too. I'm maddened by this institution yet I prize it above all others.
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When American TV and movies call for a twist of limey in their cocktail, it's usually a character th...
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When American TV and movies call for a twist of limey in their cocktail, it's usually a character they're after - supervillain, emotionally constipated academic, effete eccentric, that kind of thing.
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The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
The week before we moved house, the BBC started a new drama, starring William Hartnell. An old man h...
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The week before we moved house, the BBC started a new drama, starring William Hartnell. An old man had a police phone box of the kind we saw in the street all the time. It turned out to be a magical and unimaginably wonderful time machine. I had never been so excited in all my life. (On Doctor Who (1963))
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[on homosexual marriage] It really makes a difference to know that one is conjoined in a legal way.
[on homosexual marriage] It really makes a difference to know that one is conjoined in a legal way.
The only drama the BBC will boast about are Merlin (2008) and Doctor Who (2005), which are fine, but...
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The only drama the BBC will boast about are Merlin (2008) and Doctor Who (2005), which are fine, but they're children's programmes. They're not for adults. And they're very good children's programmes, don't get me wrong, they're wonderfully written ... but they are not for adults. They are like a chicken nugget. Every now and again we all like it. Every now and again. If you are an adult you want something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong. You want to try those things, because that's what being adult means.
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I've always believed Americans have one huge, ready-made gift when it comes to acting in front of a ...
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I've always believed Americans have one huge, ready-made gift when it comes to acting in front of a camera - the ability to relax. Take the supreme relaxed authenticity of a James Stewart or a George Clooney compared with the brittle contrivances of a Laurence Olivier or a Kenneth Branagh, marvelous as they are.
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I sometimes wonder if you Americans aren't often fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance th...
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I sometimes wonder if you Americans aren't often fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.
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I grew up in what seems now to me and to most cultural and broadcast historians to have been a golde...
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I grew up in what seems now to me and to most cultural and broadcast historians to have been a golden age in television.
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My father was all brain and little heart.
My father was all brain and little heart.
Generally, we admire the thing we are not. On the set of Bones (2005) I have been amazed and impress...
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Generally, we admire the thing we are not. On the set of Bones (2005) I have been amazed and impressed by the naturalness of the cast, and berate myself for sounding as if I'm speechifying instead of talking.
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There is as far as I know no profession in this country that likes to talk about itself more than br...
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There is as far as I know no profession in this country that likes to talk about itself more than broadcasting.
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Gosh. Elliott G Spencer and I go into a room as two people, sign a book and leave as one. Amazing.
Gosh. Elliott G Spencer and I go into a room as two people, sign a book and leave as one. Amazing.
It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then, like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.
It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then, like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.
I love Britain, like most Britons I get desperately upset at her failings: when it goes wrong, when ...
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I love Britain, like most Britons I get desperately upset at her failings: when it goes wrong, when it gets it totally totally wrong, when it's shoddy, when it's inefficient, incompetent, rude, vulgar, embarrassing, when it slips into national torpor or boils into bouts of embarrassing national fever. I can moan about health and safety gone mad and leaves on the line, rail networks and crap service and crap weather and crap sporting achievements and crap politicians and crap newspapers and crap attitude. I can do all that. In fact it's the defining signature quality of my Britishness to talk like that, to complain and to self-castigate but does it mean that I don't love this damned country? Does it mean that I don't get weepy when I think of its history, its people, its countryside, its richness, its plurality, the cultural and artistic energy, the good humour, tolerance, the ability to evolve for good, achingly slow as that ability might be? Does it mean that I don't as it were stand to attention when I think of the sacrifice of our military, the selfless good of so many working in hospitals and schools and rescue services and the million acts of unremembered kindness, decency and good fellowship practised every day by unsung heroes and heroines in every walk of life? Of course it doesn't mean that I don't love and respect that. One carps and one criticises because one loves.
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Of course, it would be unfair for me to comment. Douglas (Douglas Adams) told me in the strictest co...
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Of course, it would be unfair for me to comment. Douglas (Douglas Adams) told me in the strictest confidence exactly why 42. The answer is fascinating, extraordinary and, when you think hard about it, completely obvious. Nonetheless amazing for that. Remarkable really. But sadly I cannot share it with anyone and the secret must go with me to the grave. Pity, because it explains so much beyond the books. It really does explain the secret of life, the universe, and everything. (On the meaning of 42 in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005))
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[re disclosure in June 2013 that he had tried to commit suicide in 2012] I am the victim of my own m...
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[re disclosure in June 2013 that he had tried to commit suicide in 2012] I am the victim of my own moods, more than most people are perhaps, in as much as I have a condition which requires me to take medication so that I don't get either too hyper or too depressed to the point of suicide. I would go as far as to tell you that I attempted it last year, so I'm not always happy - this is the first time I've said this in public, but I might as well. I'm president of Mind, and the whole point in my role, as I see it, is not to be shy and forthcoming about the morbidity and genuine nature of the likelihood of death amongst people with certain mood disorders. It was a close run thing. I took a huge number of pills and a huge [amount] of vodka and the mixture of them made my body convulse so much that I broke four ribs, but I was still unconscious. And, fortunately, the producer I was filming with at the time came into the hotel room and I was found in a sort of unconscious state and taken back to England and looked after. There is no 'why', it's not the right question. There's no reason. If there were a reason for it, you could reason someone out of it, and you could tell them why they shouldn't take their own life.
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[to Russian homophobe Vitaly Milonov] You really ought to stop because you're making a great fool of...
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[to Russian homophobe Vitaly Milonov] You really ought to stop because you're making a great fool of yourself on camera. This is going to be shown around the world and if people hear you speaking like this, they're going to think so little of Russia. They're going to think: "Is this man actually allowed to use the street and the telephone, let alone be a politician?"
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Thatcherism had seen the first concerted political opposition, ideological opposition to the way the...
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Thatcherism had seen the first concerted political opposition, ideological opposition to the way the BBC in particular was seen to run itself and to behave. The administration was perhaps getting its revenge on the BBC for its perceived participation in, and promulgation of, the poisonous ethos of the 1960s. Liberalism, permissive media encroachments on decency, disrespectful satire, outright socialistic dramas and documentaries were all cited as proof of the BBC's undemocratic doctrinaire partiality. The trick was conceived in which the BBC could be blamed for being at one and the same time old-fashioned, stuck in the mud, reactionary, elitist, hidebound, de haut en bas, patriarchal, top/down, patronising and simultaneously left-wing, trendy, bien pensant and unpatriotic, because radical now meant right-wing. Modern and progressive meant consumer-led and market-oriented. The Tebbits and the Thatchers of this world were not about to allow intellectuals, artists, liberals and Oxbridge nomenclatura of decadent self-appointed cultural apparatchiks to decide what was good for the public. The nanny state was bad enough in their eyes but the schoolmaster state, the don state was even worse.
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[on the death of Peter O'Toole] Oh what terrible news. Farewell Peter O'Toole. I had the honour of d...
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[on the death of Peter O'Toole] Oh what terrible news. Farewell Peter O'Toole. I had the honour of directing him in a scene. Monster, scholar, lover of life, genius.
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I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the pric...
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I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want. Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, "Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!" But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?
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What is the point of the Catholic Church if it says, "We didn't know better because nobody else did?...
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What is the point of the Catholic Church if it says, "We didn't know better because nobody else did?" Then what are you for?
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Homophobia is still a world problem. Homosexuality isn't and never has been. Homosexuals are not int...
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Homophobia is still a world problem. Homosexuality isn't and never has been. Homosexuals are not interested in making other people homosexual. Homophobics are interested in making other people homophobic.
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Although, of course, anybody can talk about snouts in troughs, and go on about it, for journalists t...
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Although, of course, anybody can talk about snouts in troughs, and go on about it, for journalists to do so is almost beyond belief, beyond belief. I know lots of journalists; I know more journalists than I know politicians. And I've never met a more venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses and allowances.
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Digital devices rock my world.
Digital devices rock my world.
"Complete loose-stool-water. Arse-gravy of the very worst kind." (Speaking about Dan Brown's novel, ...
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"Complete loose-stool-water. Arse-gravy of the very worst kind." (Speaking about Dan Brown's novel, "The Da Vinci Code.")
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How can one not be fond of something that the "Daily Mail" despises?
How can one not be fond of something that the "Daily Mail" despises?
[to a Ugandan homophobe] Why are you obsessed with anuses? I'm not interested in anuses. I'm interes...
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[to a Ugandan homophobe] Why are you obsessed with anuses? I'm not interested in anuses. I'm interested in men I fall in love with and not with anuses. Can't you understand? It's about love. You are so base and materialistic. I'm not interested in sodomy and buggery, I am not interested, so forget about it, you're so perverted, all you care about is penises and vaginas and anuses. It's so sick. Your obsession with sodomy, it says something very peculiar about you if I may say so. It's quite extraordinary, it's a most peculiar thing. It's not up to you to tell me how to use my penis, my penis was there to give me pleasure. Under the cloak of caring, you have designated homosexuality to be a vicious, perverted disease.
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Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
"Comedy always goes up and down but this year's been great. Comedy is immensely strong right now, wi...
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"Comedy always goes up and down but this year's been great. Comedy is immensely strong right now, with the Green Wing (2004) and Nighty Night (2004)." (Speaking in 2005)
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John Cleese said to me years ago that "you will never be happy unless you stop being so polite. I ha...
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John Cleese said to me years ago that "you will never be happy unless you stop being so polite. I have spent much of my life trying to please people, trying to be what they wanted me to be rather than what I actually wanted to be.
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