Quotes from Louis Theroux

I don't feel that as human beings we have an obligation to dislike someone based on their beliefs, and it's OK to have a human reaction to someone even if you feel what they do is hideous and objectionable. You can still enjoy their company and find them interesting to be around.

I think there's a feeling of - a grassroots feeling of being betrayed by the elites in some way: that the system is working for itself and not for the people at the bottom.

My guilty fear is that what I'm doing, probably anyone could do. And that I just got a lot of lucky breaks.

Reflecting the truth sounds easy, but sometimes it's not.

If I actually invited someone to make a documentary about me, and I said, 'Anything goes', and then I refused to answer any questions, that would be inconsistent.

Although my dad's a writer, we grew up in a telly-watching household. I never found him disparaging about television.

Hunting really divides people in Britain. We keep pets, and we name our animals, but we're not too worried about industrial hunting practices.

I think people are so immersed in the anti-Scientology mindset by consuming tabloid media and stories about space aliens. It's baffling. When I say I want to see a more positive side of the church, all I'm saying is I want to get past these headlines that talk about aliens and Tom Cruise jumping on a sofa.

When it was time to meet a chimpanzee, I got very, very anxious because they have the strength of ten men, so I hear.

Scientology is not that different from other religions. And yet, at the same time, we don't have Anglicans doing the things that are alleged to be done in Scientology, at least in the Sea Org.

All religions are, in some basic sense, irrational.

I'm not trying to acquire a reputation as serious documentary maker for its own sake.

As much as the glasses, it's the Englishness and the gangliness. The apparent lack of muscularity... they indicate I'm not a macho man.

For publicity purposes, everything gets simplified, and the fact that I wear glasses and am somewhat bookish makes me a geek. That's fine; there needs to be a shorthand, but there are important geek traits that I don't really share.

I don't like that feeling of holding back difficult questions. I feel like the more I can be transparent in the way I approach a story, the more it makes a satisfying programme.

When interviews are too cosy, I don't enjoy them.

I feel like, if there's an elephant in the room, I'd really like to start off by introducing the elephant in the room. And sometimes it's funny.

Clearly I'm able to read emotions. But I do feel... What is it? Awkwardness. I'm not a slick dude. That's what it comes down to. The nakedness, the guilelessness... that's quite real.

I think everybody carries a slight sense of being different, and I know that it comes very naturally to me.

I think I have a slight fear of intimacy.

I've always slightly harboured a dream of making a film, a documentary feature. Somehow, I just got into a way of working a routine of making TV docs.

It's in the DNA of Scientology that they don't trust journalists.

I try not to be too judgmental.

Look after your body, because I'm 44, and things are happening that I never dreamed of - like bad joints and man boobs!