Self-consciousness, that's what it is. Always my abiding vice. I keep seeing myself. Me watching myself watching others watch me. How do you lose that? What's the trick?

The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic.

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

You are who you are when nobody's watching.

An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.

The short answer to that is 'no.' The long answer is 'fuck no.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

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.

I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.

No adolescent ever wants to be understood, which is why they complain about being misunderstood all the time.

Hell, I am young. I am free. My teeth are clean. The sun shines. To hell with everything else

I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?

I met my husband when a friend sent him over to my house to cure my hiccoughs.

My mother-in-law must be the probation officer I got for the crime I committed of marrying my husband.

Some wives have model husbands, I got one that needed remodeling.

Your husband drinks too much if he says he never drinks alone, but considers the goldfish somebody.

Your husband is lazy if when he leaves the house, he finds out which way the wind is blowing and goes that direction.

Your husband is lazy if the directions on his medicine say, "A teaspoon before going to bed," and in one day he uses seven bottles.

Your husband is lazy if coffee doesn't keep him awake - even when it's hot and being spilled on him.

I became a stand-up comedienne because I had a sit-down husband.

Once my husband said to me, 'I'm going to have some coffee. Do you want me to put some hot water on for you?' I thought that was the least he could do considering I was giving birth.

I should have suspected my husband was lazy. On our wedding day, his mother told me: "I'm not losing a son; I'm gaining a couch."

This woman goes into a gun shop and says, 'I want to buy a gun for my husband.' The clerk says, 'Did he tell you what kind of gun?' 'No,' she replied. 'He doesn't even know I'm going to shoot him.

This woman goes into a gun shop and says, 'I want to buy a gun for my husband.' The clerk says, 'Did he tell you what kind of gun?' 'No,' she replied. 'He doesn't even know I'm going to shoot him.

My husband is so useless that it's hard for me to be romantic with him. I get down on the floor and say, If you love me, blink your eyes.

If your husband wants to lick the beaters on the mixer, shut them off before you give them to him.

The only thing my husband and I have in common is that we were married on the same day.

Remarrying a husband you've divorced is like having your appendix put back in.

My husband always felt that a marriage and career don't mix. That's why he's never worked.

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

One of the most important days of my life was when I learned to ride a bicycle.

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveller.

I don't see why it should be remarkable that you can acquire a reputation for fairness and decency. Those are qualities shared by so many people. And the great majority of people I meet are decent people, just trying to navigate their way through the world without causing too much trouble.

I do have high standards. I look at everything I have done and think, 'Why wasn't that better?' Part of my motivation is from crippling self-doubt - I have got to prove myself wrong.

'The Truth' is not meant to preach or point any fingers. It's meant to show that perhaps we should all avoid taking the moral high ground unless we have thought about things a bit more.

Despite having seen a fair amount of the world, I still love travelling - I just have an insatiable curiosity and like looking out of a window.

I wanted to be an explorer, but gradually found the world had been explored and that there was nowhere left, really. Once they climbed Everest in 1953, when I was 10 years old, I thought, 'Well, that's pretty much it now.' But the idea of travelling and exploring and adventure was very strong.

I've always been blessed, or cursed, some might say, with an insatiable curiosity, a desire to find something out about a people and a place. That's where it all begins.

Fame changes everything. When you're well-known, you're expected to be different. Some people assume you must have a yacht and four homes. Or that you're famous because you are 'A Decent Man'.

The trouble with travelling back later on is that you can never repeat the same experience.

There are people who travel because they want to push themselves to physical limits, people who walk across deserts or cycle across the Antarctic - like Ranulph Fiennes, who just does it because it's there. And then there are people like me, who are just genuinely curious about the world.

If you had a successful TV show, people wanted to see you live. Promoters had had practice with pop groups, and 'Python' achieved a similar status. We also had lots of rock star fans - George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Robert Plant. Promoters saw that and liked it.

There is barely a country in the world where you will be completely safe.

People are still crazy about Python after twenty-five years, which I find hard to believe.

Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won't be made safer by creating barriers between people.

I always wanted to be an explorer, but - it seemed I was doomed to be nothing more than a very silly person.

I think you learn a lot about a country from its art. To me, it's part of the drama of life. It teaches you that there are places, moments and incidents in other cultures that genuinely have a life of their own.

I am restless. I don't mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.