Quotes from Graham Linehan

I get contacted daily by people in America saying is there any legal way to download 'The IT Crowd', but the whole mechanism is too rigid to allow for things like that.

There are some actors who come alive in front of a crowd, and if you've cast it right, there's an energy between cast and audience that can be exhilarating for both parties, then enjoyed by the audience at home.

Whenever I write for television, I plan the story on whiteboard wallpaper in my office, using a system created by the American writer Dan Harmon. It's remarkably simple: a character wants something; they enter a new world and adapt to it; they get what they want, re-enter the old world and change.

I've always been an enormous fan of comic books and anything that captures the real in a surreal environment.

I'm often asked for advice on how to go about making comedy shows like the begrudgingly accepted 'IT Crowd'.

The thing that changed everything for me was the Firefox browser. I was pretty bad when it came to computers - I didn't know how powerful the internet could be until I discovered tabbed browsing.

Conflict is entertaining and it's the stuff of drama - or comedy - but too much conflict, or conflict that's at too high a pitch can get annoying.

The net is a very precious thing. I hate it when people discuss measures to limit it.

Basically if you're trying to write films in England you might as well decide to hide for two years. It's just meetings with people who don't really have any money but pretend they do.

There are producers, like the late Geoffrey Perkins, who have truly great ideas that will fire up your synapses and show you that handing in your first draft is not the end of a horrible process, but the beginning of a beautiful one.

Father Ted' would be impossible to remake it in America. The whole situation of being Irish and being a priest in Ireland is so different than anything else in America.

I feel that shows like 'Ted' and 'The IT Crowd' are very much more enjoyable watching with friends around a telly.

I think all technology should be plug and play. I would say it's easier to set up a blog than it is to change channels on your telly.

I have to use all these programs that cut off the internet, force me to be bored, because being bored is an essential part of writing, and the internet has made it very hard to be bored.

I like shows where the female characters are as funny as the male characters, not just commenting on how funny the male characters are.

I go up to my office and sit down in front of my computer and turn on the internet and then I don't work - that's the end of work for the day.

Whenever you see someone react to something they're reading on their phone, that's life being lived.

If you're a good writer, you don't have everybody shouting in every scene.

Facebook was just John the Baptist. Twitter is the real deal.

The writing of 'The Ladykillers' was fun. But once it goes out of your hands it's not fun, 'especially for someone who is used to being hands-on like me.

People are very confused about how to do things on a computer, but generally, if you hover your cursor over things, it will tell you what it is.

Part of the job involves thinking about things and eliminating them. You spend a lot of time coming up with ideas that are terrible and hating them and hating yourself.

There is no 'magic water' that you can rub on a script to make the jokes funnier.

I used to be a film and music journalist, and wrote for different magazines in the 1990s. I still love music, but the experience destroyed my enthusiasm for film.