Top 100 Telly Quotes
#1. The more telly you do, the more it feels like a factory.
Kevin Whately
#2. I hope I reach the point where epiphanies become so commonplace that I scarcely bother to register them: Oh look, another epiphany - as we acquire knowledge we become mired in the ignorance of the educated, delivered from the wisdom of innocence by a corrupted midwife. Now what's on telly?
Anonymous
#3. If I cry on telly, I'm genuinely crying. If it's a gritty scene it can come naturally.
Kelvin Fletcher
#4. Jake's in trouble.'
Luca rolled his eyes. 'What now?'
'He's gone off somewhere, I think I know where, and I don't think it's good.'
'Cant that boy ever stay in and watch telly like the rest of us?
Sharon Sant
#5. Telly and films has been my thing, not necessarily by choice, and if the right piece of theatre came along, I would jump at it.
Darren Boyd
#6. I did four or five years in telly, and by the end of it was drained. I was a bit sick of myself. I didn't feel like an actor anymore. That sounds silly, but when you're doing a play you're using different muscles, and it blew all the cobwebs away.
Matthew Macfadyen
#7. How do those people who don't read books plug the gaps in their day? The journeys, the break-times, the evenings when the telly is crap, the time in bed before sleep arrives?
Robert Craig
#8. On the first night it was on telly, Channel 4 had 17 complaints.
Vic Reeves
#9. William Tell's son, Telly, who said as his father was pointing the bow and arrow at the apple on his head, There's gotta be an easier way to kill worms. Never got a dinner!
Red Buttons
#10. Before you go,mate,turn on the telly. Something raunchy too. Think I'll rub off one before I go to sleep
Jeaniene Frost
#11. Theatre has always been better disposed to colourblind casting than telly or film. Given that most television is contemporary, and it reaches 56 million people, I am disappointed there still isn't more representation.
Sanjeev Bhaskar
#12. Telly never has any smart, amusing intellectuals living on a council estate.
Caitlin Moran
#13. Middle-aged women on telly is a bit of a hot topic - before, we were 27 to 37, and now we're 40 to 50. You do notice as you get older ... you go past 35, and suddenly you're playing baddies.
Sally Phillips
#14. I was like Elvis "The Pelvis" Presley on Ed Sullivan, I tells ya, punished for the crime of being sexy. (him on the telly , me in a dingy alley ... any analogy will break down under scrutiny.)
Russell Brand
#15. If your pal or neighbour is in the SNP, you're more likely to listen to them than if you just turn on the telly and see me or Alex. The growth of membership is building a politically engaged community base that hasn't been there in my lifetime.
Nicola Sturgeon
#16. I was the youngest of three brothers by five years, so I spent most of my childhood playing alone, being Zorro or some other superhero, doing Lego, watching telly and riding my bike.
Robert Webb
#17. I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.
Jo Brand
#18. Whenever I get a good script, I don't care whether it's telly or theatre or big screen - I'm not bothered.
Pete Postlethwaite
#19. I think if my eight-year-old self could see me at the Royal Albert Hall winning a prize for playing the Doctor on telly, he would need a stiff shot of Irn-Bru.
David Tennant
#20. I'm really visually stimulated more than anything. I don't really listen to music. I'm more into watching telly or watching movies and visual art.
Sia Furler
#21. But I quite like that the public has a very short attention span. If I haven't been on telly for a little bit, I can sense it. People don't take as much notice of you, it's really quite palpable.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
#22. This is no time for drinking a mug of water - which you would do nowhere else in the world. A mug of water! You just don't drink water from mugs, do ya? Except on the telly. Water out of a mug! Should be a hot drink ... mug of water.
Russell Brand
#23. I watch Pretty Little Liars with my best friend Telly. We go to each other's houses when it airs and we watch it.
Naya Rivera
#24. You know when you get into that thing where people want to discuss the relationship? I'd rather discuss what was on telly, avoid the issue, discuss anything other than the relationship.
Jarvis Cocker
#25. I saw this train driver and said, 'I wanna go to Paris.' He said, 'Eurostar?' I said, 'Well I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin.' Mind you, at least the Eurostar's comfy. It's murder on the Orient Express isn't it?
Tim Vine
#26. Some people are instantly brilliant. The Kenneth Branaghs of this world are ready-formed actors at 23 - he has used his success in lots of different ways - but there are people out there for whom acting is: 'Ooh, I can get on the telly and be famous.'
Harriet Walter
#27. I don't watch a huge amount of telly. I read a lot. I'm reading at the moment 'Freedom,' by Jonathan Franzen, a great big brick of a book, and I'm loving it.
Nick Clegg
#28. I was playing in the juniors at Wimbledon I forgot to turn my mobile phone off. It was lying there in my bag and it rang in the middle of a match, and it was one of my friends from school saying, 'Murray, you're on the telly!' I learnt from that. After that I always put my phone on silent.
Andy Murray
#29. I don't care where you went to school. There - have I made your day? No? All right, I'll go further: I also don't care what your dad did for a living or how your mum voted. Nor do I mind whether you ate your tea in front of the telly, dinner at the kitchen table, or supper in the dining room.
Robert Webb
#30. It definitely puts a strain on family life - I miss them like mad. Being a working mother I've been juggling house and career from day one. I want to hold out for telly for the second half of the year.
Louise Jameson
#31. Where I get bored is when I show up for a shoot and they want me to wear a feather boa. Too obvious a thing for a poof on the telly to do.
Graham Norton
#32. My parents' generation was definitely pre-telly, and they knew how to entertain each other. Everybody knew something that they could do - a song or a poem, or a piece of music. At school, I remember being a cat and then a budgie and then a bumble bee. I obviously thought all that was marvelous.
Lindsay Duncan
#33. Linda Hertney: It's like a final goodbye from Todd. (Linda = nut. Once claimed crow on ledge was reincarnation of her dead husband. Said she could telly by way crow's head was cocked disapprovingly at large lunch she was eating.)
George Saunders
#34. I'll always be attached to telly in one way or another, whether it's a character or producer or director, I just love the medium.
Idris Elba
#35. Well, I've got a color telly, and a fridge. I've got some pork chops in the fridge, but the chops keep going off, so I have to keep buying more.
Syd Barrett
#36. I get recognised a fair bit. It goes up when 'Peep Show' or the sketch show is on the telly or when we're doing loads of interviews.
Robert Webb
#38. I think I wanted to be on Top Gear from a fairly young age because I loved cars and I wanted to do something on telly because I loved TV. I know that I?m ridiculously lucky
Richard Hammond
#39. I never did that badly with women when I wasn't on telly, but it's a bit out of control now. Women try it on with me more than I'm comfortable with. It's strange, because I think I look like a troll wearing a woman's wig backwards.
Noel Fielding
#40. A celebrity now is someone who's on the telly.
Kate Moss
#41. I'd hate to be really beautiful on telly and then have everyone go, 'It's all make-up and lighting.'
Sophie McShera
#42. I decided to build a studio in my house. We built it in my basement kitchen. I had the drummer up by the fish tank. I was in the toilet singing. The bass player was out by the shelves in the living room, and the guitarist was on the couch by the telly.
Eddi Reader
#43. I don't normally watch myself on the telly.
Frank Bruno
#44. I've been offered radio but never done it, partly because the radio ideas that I've been asked to come up with, I've thought about them and then converted them to telly things.
Jonathan Meades
#45. I don't need Simon Bloody Cowell making me look like a right tit on the telly.
J.L. Merrow
#46. I stared at them. 'Every time what?' I said, as Nathan put the money into Will's hand.
'He said you'd be reading a book. I said you'd be watching telly. He always wins.'
My sandwich stilled at my lips. 'Always?
You've been betting on how boring my life is?
Jojo Moyes
#47. I've got a very peculiar sort of fame, based on being on the telly. It doesn't mean you have the lifestyle people expect.
Ian Hislop
#48. I thought they were staring at me because I was gay. But it was because I was on the telly.
Julian Clary
#49. A BOOK?! WHAT D'YOU WANNA FLAMING BOOK FOR? ... WE'VE GOT A LOVELY TELLY WITH A 12-INCH SCREEN AND NOW YA WANNA BOOK!
Roald Dahl
#50. We were watching telly the night Nan burnt the house down.
Celine Kiernan
#51. And people are so het up about the fact I'm in the theatre - it's like, 'Ooh these telly names, can they be any good?' I came out of RADA and my first job was at the National Theatre, but everyone wonders if I can cope. It makes me laugh.
Joanna Page
#52. Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don't understand that.
Matthew Macfadyen
#54. When I see that man on the telly - 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' No! I'm definitely not! I find most of it quite offensive!
John Prescott
#55. In some households you only have to turn up three times before you're expected to make your own tea, draw up a chair in front of the telly and call the cat a bastard.
Ben Aaronovitch
#56. I never thought I'd be one of those old hams who favours theatre over everything, but I'm getting that way. Telly and film seemed more fun when I was younger; turning left on planes and washing up in nice places. But there are things that you only learn in theatre.
Paul McGann
#57. When I got a telly we had no aerial, but I discovered that if I or one of the children stood by it you could get a picture. So I had to make a statue that could stand by the telly.
Beryl Bainbridge
#58. I get a lot of letters from people saying, 'How do I get into radio, how do I get into telly?' and I wish there was an answer, because there's no ladder. There are no parameters. You've just got to go in wherever you can, make the tea, and slowly make your way up the ladder.
Terry Wogan
#59. I haven't really got much get up and go. I can't believe I'm on the telly. I'm so lazy.
Allan Carr
#60. The telly is invaded
by hallelujah channels
and informercials,
both trying to sell
everything needed
to save you.
Emma Cameron
#61. There are times when I think, if I were a bit more famous, life could be easier in terms of work because producers want bums on seats, and they're going to get bums on seats if they get a name, if you have had that series on telly.
Alexander Hanson
#62. I'm not slim. I'm a curvy girl: I've got thighs and a bum. I don't mind baring the fact that I've got a bit of cellulite because everybody has. I find it off-putting when everybody on telly is the same size or looks the same build. For me, it's important for people to watch someone normal.
Vicky McClure
#63. I do look better on TV. In real life, I look scruffy and pale, and I get the worst kind of recognition ... I get the 'Haven't we met somewhere before?' I suggest it might be because I'm on the telly, and they say, 'No, it's definitely not that. Wasn't it at so-and-so's party?'
Tom Ward
#64. It's about good copy and ensuring that cases can be made into top-notch documentaries on the telly. Public approval is the all-important currency these days, and police budgets ebb and flow on the back of circulation and viewing figures.
Jasper Fforde
#65. The best job was when I was at drama school and I cleaned flats in the Barbican. I loved it. They were spotless anyway, so you'd just watch the telly and flick a duster around.
Sarah Parish
#66. It's not easy for you, Dad
You seek your own space
You slope off to watch telly
But still see (Mom's Mum's Mam's) face
John Walter Bratton
#67. At twenty life was like wrestling an octopus. Every moment mattered. At thirty it was a walk in the country. Most of the time your mind was somewhere else. By the time you got to seventy, it was probably like watching snooker on the telly.
Mark Haddon
#68. I only like doing live telly. It's great because you go in and do it and then go home. No edit, no retakes.
Paul O'Grady
#69. So I said to this train driver "I want to go to Paris". He said "Eurostar?". I said "I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin".
Tommy Cooper
#70. On telly, there's been a move towards entertainment - with some very high-powered, fast-moving dramas. Then we have the Internet, where we get our information but it's all in bite-size pieces. I think the documentary, as a form, actually speaks to what's missing.
Beeban Kidron
#71. We've got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You're getting spoiled, my girl!
Roald Dahl
#72. I think if you've got a good idea it will stand out in one of the different mediums. For example, something might happen to me today and it could be something to talk about tomorrow on the radio, or I can write about it, or perhaps it will be best suited to telly.
Danny Wallace
#73. The transitions will be tough because of the nature of a triathlon, you have to get changed and dry off or whatever. But this is going to be even harder because I have to do all that, then speak on the radio, do an interview with local telly, do some press and some interviews.
Greg James
#74. I hate that thing that if you are over 45, and you're going to be on telly or make films, you have to do all this stupid stuff to your face. I would no more let someone stick a needle in my forehead than fly to the moon.
Lesley Manville
#75. Very rarely will you listen to the radio in a judgmental way, the way you'll watch telly.
Clare Balding
#76. Turn up your radio. Watch lots of telly and eat loads of choc. Feel guilty. Stay up all night. Learn everything in six hours that has taken you two years to compile. That's how I did it.
Dawn French
#77. I watch schlock telly. Like the 'Kardashians.' I love it. It's my guilty pleasure.
Dawn French
#78. I always think I should try to get to bed early, but then I can't stop myself from watching telly and fiddling around on the net.
Jenson Button
#79. I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that's it.
Gordon Ramsay
#80. 'Doctor Who' was my first telly job, and before that I did a lot of theatre in education, children's theatre.
Sophie Aldred
#81. All my interesting stories are from before I was on television. Nothing interesting has happened to me since then. Maybe it's because the most interesting thing in my life is the show and that's on telly.
Graham Norton
#82. I hate the idea that I have to represent any particular section of society; I just write good telly, that's all.
Russell T. Davies
#83. The power of telly is surprising. If you're in a six-part series, you're famous while it's on - people point in the street. Two weeks later it all goes back to normal.
Paul McGann
#84. It takes time and energy, and if I'm working, then I'd rather flop in front of the telly than put on a tiny dress and work out how to get myself to God knows where. I mean, lazy some would call it.
Daisy Donovan
#85. MTV and video games have solved that problem as far as most of humanity goes. That, and telly, as it were."
"Telly?" Who was that?
He grunted in amusement. "Television, of course. Don't you speak English?"
"You sure don't," I muttered.
Shaking his head, he frowned at me.
Jeaniene Frost
#86. It's very difficult once you've been on telly because people know what you do. They give you a little bit of grace but then they're harsher if you're not funny, so you have to be funny.
Noel Fielding
#87. For me, a bit of anthropology in the evening is always better than staying and watching the telly.
Nick Rhodes
#88. And the druids, they were into sex and death in an interesting night-time telly sort of way.
Eddie Izzard
#89. You get pigeonholed. Some people are film stars, and some are theatre stars who do one-off telly. Somehow, I get into long-running series.
Kevin Whately
#90. I was very small, about 3 or 4 I think, and just wanted to be the people on telly telling these wonderful stories. Obviously the idea grew and matured with me but I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I've just sort of taken it for granted all my life that that was what I would do.
David Tennant
#91. I was very inventive. I lived in my own world - my dad said I was a loner. Not lonely, just happy in my own company. It's the same now. I need time alone, which is maybe why I love to write. Having said that, I love the sociability of telly. It's a nice contrast.
Alan Titchmarsh
#92. I'm aware families sit around the telly to watch 'Vera', which is making entertainment out of murder. But I don't enjoy reading about people's pain. I tend to put myself in that position, and it's not somewhere I want to be.
Ann Cleeves
#93. I wouldn't want to leave it so long before doing a play again, I get very stolid and sluggish if I do too much telly.
Matthew Macfadyen
#94. I like to get up and get out. Otherwise you end up kicking about, and it's easy to flick the telly on; then before you know it, it is 11 A.M. and you haven't done anything.
Anton Du Beke
#95. Oh, nobody would ever want to know me in Hollywood. I'm far too puffin-faced for that, too weird-looking. No, I think I'll probably stick to telly, if telly'll have me, though I wouldn't mind doing radio plays as well.
Tamsin Greig
#96. I care more about telly because it made me an actor and there's a much more immediate response to TV. You can address the political or cultural fabric of your country.
Christopher Eccleston
#97. I think there's a far more general audience now because I've done more populist stuff on telly.
Jo Brand
#98. I like making films about old people because they are repositories of amazing stories that they tell well. And they're incredibly good telly.
Ian Hislop
#99. I love nature - it's probably my most favorite thing. I don't watch much telly, the telly hardly goes on, but the things I do watch are sort of nature programs, and something about the oceans and the amount of weird fish that's in there.
Karl Pilkington
#100. It's odd, because I used to see pictures, on telly or wherever, of what I now know to be Shaftesbury Avenue and I used to wonder what that amazing street with all the lights was. Well, now I know. I think when you get a wee taste of something, it maybe isn't what you thought it was.
Shirley Henderson
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