Top 79 Eric Idle Quotes

#1. Never do things for money. It's always the things you do for love that turn out to pay the best.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #34797
#2. Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #47952
#3. Know what I mean? Eh, eh, Nudge nudge, Say no more?

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #68621
#4. I love stage work. The thing about plays is that they're perfectible. With film, you shoot that take and maybe another. During 'Spamalot,' I rewrote Act II three times.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #70073
#5. Writers tend to suffer from back problems because they spend their time bent over a desk.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #88408
#6. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will make me cry by myself in a corner for hours.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #102960
#7. The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #190610
#8. I pay taxes in three countries, but can't vote in any of them.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #254194
#9. Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #279947
#10. Monty Python only became valuable when it was sold to Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in America. They didn't pay much either, but the series has been shown repeatedly, which led to lucrative tapes, CDs and DVDs.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #314221
#11. I've always found bad films more enjoyable than good ones.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #316351
#12. I used to collect Persian rugs and real estate - you should be able to walk on and live in your money. I had to give up the rugs because I'm allergic to mould.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #322292
#13. I used to have a house in London, but couldn't face 20 more years of St John's Wood in the rain.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #351497
#14. Life took over 4 billion years to evolve into you, and you've about 70 more years to enjoy it. Don't just pursue happiness, catch it.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #377474
#15. Learn to trust yourself. That's very vital ... Just stand with yourself. Remember, in his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only two paintings. I personally sold even fewer.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #401449
#16. Talent is always more interesting - ambition is not interesting. If you have talent, you have to find ways of expressing it, but you may not be a success in the world's terms.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #412153
#17. I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #471043
#18. If you're famous, you have to [be overly generous], otherwise people say, "Eric Idle came in and only left me $4." I always tip more than people expect.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #504306
#19. At least in America, you have freedom of speech, which is a good thing. It's just a question of whether you're allowed to use it on 'Fox News'.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #551406
#20. What's brown and sounds like a bell? DUNG!

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #655259
#21. It just seems to me that there's no particular reason comedy albums should be dead. There's a lot to laugh at. We have very funny people, still.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #655726
#22. A website can be very time-intensive, but I'd love to have one where people can contribute to it - like invent islands and make their own flags, and their own laws. I think that'd be kind of fun.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #698281
#23. Always look on the brighter side of life

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #760450
#24. I think you often learn from failure. Success just teaches you how great you were, but in fact it's knowing what will fail that will help you to make the right choices.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #765972
#25. You could write a joke in the pub at lunchtime and watch it performed on television that evening.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #771860
#26. You initially become funny as a kid because you're looking for attention and love. Psychologists think that's all to do with mother abandonment. I think John Cleese has his depressions, and Terry Gilliam's the same. All of us together make one completely insane person.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #805143
#27. I do pool exercises, like weightlifting but underwater. I walk, I swim ... I'm pretty fit for an old bloke.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #812691
#28. Pattycake, pattycake, baker's man; good morning, madam, I'm a psychiatrist

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #815057
#29. Many years ago I also bought a house in Provence for about 70,000 francs. It had no electricity or running water, and no road leading to the house, but gradually we made improvements. It's my escape and I love it.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #829219
#30. I'm drawn to things that aren't particularly popular at the time. I don't know why.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #842107
#31. To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #853916
#32. I like being a foreigner. For me, to live in California is very pleasant - I'm more comfortable not feeling a part of everything, not feeling responsible for the government or the roads or the health system.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #913510
#33. People who are interested in money are really uninteresting people. They look like Donald Trump.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #938026
#34. Monty Python paid me £20,000 to write, direct and assemble them - the cheapskates! I told them I'd never earned less in a year since leaving Cambridge. The first show sold out in 43 seconds and we ended up performing ten in total. We had no idea there would be such demand.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #944610
#35. I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #959014
#36. When I was 23 I started writing for I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and was paid three guineas for every minute's airtime.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1013641
#37. The dreadful thing about getting older is you cry at the drop of a hat.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1092477
#38. I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1103987
#39. Probably spending 12 years at boarding school - comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1177046
#40. The room was rococo. I had a strong sense of gilt.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1189643
#41. Life has a very simple plot: first you're here and then you're not.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1200933
#42. We never have that thought! The whole object is to bite off more than you can chew. John [Du Prez] always says, Eric thinks of something completely insane and insists we go in that direction. It's the correct way to look at things and the correct place to start, I think.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1206373
#43. People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1245042
#44. I have been very blessed in my life and rewarded with good friends and good health. I am grateful and happy to be able to share this.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1249440
#45. Elvis saved my life when I was 13 or 14. He saved all our lives.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1254916
#46. Typical Hollywood crowd - all the kids are on drugs, and all the adults are on roller skates.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1275283
#47. I like the idea of being out there regularly with an audience and with a funny gang of people. That's what I grew up with - doing television, doing shows every week.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1339542
#48. Bear in mind the simple rule, X squared to the power of two minus five over the seven point eight three times nineteen is approximately equal to the cube root of MCC squared divided by X minus a quarter of a third percent. Keep that in mind, and you can't go very far wrong.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1351917
#49. Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is "beware". This is not a wine for drinking; this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1366796
#50. We've discovered that the less we do, the more money we make.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1369054
#51. I love being an older comic now. It's like being an old soccer or an old baseball player. You're in the Hall of Fame and it's nice, but you're no longer that person in the limelight on the spot doing that thing.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1375054
#52. A lot has been said about politics; some of it complimentary, but most of it accurate

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1379250
#53. I never think in terms of target audience. I try to write what makes me laugh, so I'm the target audience. I guess I just hope there's another person in America like me.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1389267
#54. I was thrilled to win a Tony in 2005 for 'Spamalot'.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1410169
#55. I won't read scripts because I have a limited amount of time. Why should I help other people do lame stuff when I can just go out and put on lame stuff of my own?

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1424920
#56. Well we were lucky because we started in Canada where everybody has a sense of humour! We flirted a little while with Josh Groban. He was personally interested in it. He said oh I'd love to do something different, and I said well it's pretty different! But in the end the dates didn't work out.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1460297
#57. Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it, life's a laugh and deat's a joke, it's true: You'll se it's all a show, keep'em laughing as you go, just remember that the last laugh is on YOU ... and ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1475090
#58. My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1476720
#59. It's such fun to take a lot of people and create something silly.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1477565
#60. I never pay any attention to figures.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1514766
#61. You look just like you!

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1531423
#62. John Cleese once told me he'd do anything for money. So I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1531681
#63. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1552300
#64. My first professional job was appearing in a disastrous theatre production of Oh, What a Lovely War in Leicester Rep, shortly after leaving Cambridge.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1572618
#65. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1590796
#66. I've got soggy thighs. It must be dinner time.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1620552
#67. Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1623107
#68. The next step will be for the colonists on Mars to throw off the hand of the United States. There will be this wonderful historical irony. When the people on Mars write a declaration of independence saying, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident ... ', the US will be rather pissed off

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1634116
#69. If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1643032
#70. I don't invest in the stock market, but I have pension funds - some in America and the UK.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1647572
#71. I'm not careful with my money at all these days. I buy people a lot of dinners!

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1662509
#72. My wife, Tania, is very big on dogs, so I'm always paying out to animal charities.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1680042
#73. Having little money to spend was a valuable learning experience. My schooling also shaped my work ethic because while other children were listening to the Goons, I was studying, which enabled me to go to Cambridge University.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1695468
#74. Nobody gets irony anymore, as we are now living in the post-ironic age. Once George Bush gets a library, our irony is dead.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1698280
#75. I will jump on anybody's private plane at the drop of a hat. I'm an old-fashioned lower-middle-class boy.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1701447
#76. No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1756156
#77. I'm more surprised than anyone that 'Spamalot's done so well. You can never predict what's going to be a hit.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1770266
#78. Reading Alan Zweibel makes me laugh out loud. And yet it is not a particularly funny name.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1827682
#79. When, in 1966, I progressed to The Frost Report, I was paid ten guineas a minute. I was guaranteed three minutes a week, so this was good money.

Eric Idle

Eric Idle Quotes #1876317

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