Quotes from Bob Mortimer

I was the youngest of four boys, raised in North Yorkshire.

I played for Middlesbrough's youth team. At the age of 16, I went into a shed at the training ground and was told that they weren't signing me on, so that was the end of that dream. Football was my life. I played football when I got to school, football every break and football as soon as I got home.

I can't remember ever cooking food to impress a woman. The idea's quite cheesy and sort of makes my skin crawl. But I sometimes make a special effort to impress my cats, with chicken liver or something. It's tricky to know if a cat's impressed. They might give me a little look, a glimpse at least. That's cat ownership for you.

I come from an era when if you are told that you need a triple heart bypass it sounds pretty terminal. But I think it's quite a normal operation these days.

I was a solicitor once, so I'm truly grateful because I know what it's like to have a proper job.

We miss 'House of Fools' a lot. We always enjoyed doing that; it felt a bit like a different and fresh show for British TV, so we always feel attached to those sort of things.

We miss 'House of Fools' a lot. It felt a bit like a different and fresh show for British TV.

You see idiots on the net but on TV you can't really find them.

I'm not that interested in other people, and I don't have any friends, so I'm not really the ideal candidate for Twitter.

I was so young when my dad died that I didn't think it had affected me. I had such tiny memories of him, just little glimpses, I thought I had been unaffected. But then I realised, somewhere in my late 40s I think, that probably the defining thing in my whole life was losing my dad.

My doctor told me that I would have had a heart attack on stage.

After my triple bypass I got my sheet of healthy and unhealthy foods and I was like, croissants!?! Literally as bad as lard.

Shooting Stars' changed panel shows a bit for ever, I think.

When I was about 13, I went to see this band called Free, who I'd never heard, and I just fell in love with them. I found my heroes. I stood at the front with my chin on the stage.

I remember when I worked at the solicitor's - you'd go in, talk to your mates for a bit and then get down to work. With us the talking to your mates part never stops.

In broadcasting, there's a lot of longevity offered to people like Griff Rhys Jones and Stephen Fry, who are polymaths more than comics. We're comics first and foremost.

I had three bypasses in one go, using arteries harvested from my leg and the right side of my chest.

After I had my heart operation I got really into heart stuff. I did think it would be lovely to go on 'Strictly' just so people could see I wasn't finished. But, sadly, now I couldn't because of my joints. I'd be hobbling around.

There are quite detailed rules with sitcom. When people can leave scenes, act structure, joke rhythm. You can't not have a straight man.

There's nothing better than just staring at a buttercup, struggling to make an impact on the world.

We live very ordinary lives.

The best part of our lives is just every day when we are writing.

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.

Our new programmes have always just been different vehicles for the same sort of comedy.