Quotes from Steve Coogan

My father worked for IBM. My mother raised us kids. There were six of us, and a couple of extra foster kids at any given time.

What I don't like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

When you tour you become more intimate with your audience. It's like I need reassurance that they like me or at least find me relevant. And that I can still do it.

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence.

I'm just attracted to playing people who are ostensible unlikable. That's not to say that there's something in there that makes you care. It might be that you just find them so awful that you just can't stop watching, like a car crash.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success.

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.

I have never wanted to be famous, as such - fame is a by-product.

But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.

I am of the very last generation who didn't have computers at school. As we grow old we'll become something of an aberration.

The great thing is that the funny side of getting old is fuel for my comedy.

I love Sherlock Holmes. I've got all his books, leather-bound. What I thought was great about Sherlock Holmes was that not only was he a supersleuth, he was also a hard worker. Not only did he go out and solve the crimes, he came home and wrote it all down. Fantastic. That's why I admire him.

We're all a bit of a dick. It's the human condition. Nothing to be afraid of.

Far from being this big, booming voice, the Daily Mail is just a little man behind a curtain.

Hitler was nice to dogs

I would happily do a third one; perhaps we could leave Europe and eat our way around America next time.

Norwich isn't the north or the south; there's a kind of otherness to it. It doesn't have an overwhelming sense of itself, like, say, Yorkshire or Cornwall does.

Death is but a moment, cowardice is a lifetime of affliction.