Without history we are nothing, so it's worth finding out something about it.
Keith Allen
I'm a jack of all trades, master of none.
Vanity takes a lot of work. I'm too lazy to be vain.
I knew Joe Strummer back in the days before he formed the Clash.
I'm very good at pretending to be subservient; I'm really good at it.
My childhood hero was Roy Rogers.
Women want to be entertained. They want value for money from a man. You have to have the whole package.
My mother was Welsh and I loved going to Wales every summer, where Uncle Les had a farm. My mother had seven brothers and a sister and they were all very close. There would always be food on the table and uncles coming in and out. My father's family were English and lived in London, and we didn't really see them.
I'll take anyone to task about UB40. They were as important as Bob Marley in getting reggae into the consciousness of British youth at that time. I'm proud to be their number one fan.
I don't like the taste of alcohol.
People using a public platform to further their own personal agenda, I think that's immoral. You have no right to do that. Tony Blair is a great example of that.
The Internet is a global lavatory wall, a Rabelaisian mixture of truth, lies, insanity and humour.
I can honestly say that throughout the 70s I never watched telly. I can remember 'Dr Who' and 'Morecambe and Wise' vaguely, but my generation didn't watch telly.
In the summer, 80 per cent of what I eat comes from my allotment. I grow everything from beetroots and leeks to apples and plums.
I was brought up on stuffed hearts, cabbage and mashed potatoes. It's repulsive, when I look back - I used to go to the butchers to get Mum's sausages, and I would cut one off and squeeze the inside of it straight into my mouth. Insane!
Unlike virtually everyone else, I know how to work a room. That comes in pretty handy. If you're not getting any laughs, then at least you can make people watch you.
I have never ever hung out with actors and comedians. I can't stand it.
My father was in the navy. I always found it a bit strange that he would choose to spend an extraordinary amount of time underneath the water in a submarine with 60 men.
I've always maintained if you want to act you should get yourself a life first.
I'm primarily an actor and only make documentaries when I see a story others have missed.
Punk changed everything. It blew away all the dull, pompous stuff that happened before, like glam rock. Kids were getting involved in causes like Rock Against Racism and they needed music that reflected that. Something similar was happening in comedy too, with the Comedy Store and the alternative scene that I got involved in.
It's much easier being a father to girls. Boys are just horrible. Then girls come into their own around 12 when they're nightmares too.
Women are women's own worst enemy. They rip each other apart.
Celebrity's a spectator sport. You have to feed it.
When I've had money I've always spent it. I don't invest. A pension? Yes, it's called my talent.
I'm probably the biggest show-off in the world. But I also happen to be an artist. You can be both, you know.
If you're on a film set for 48 weeks of the year, you're nowhere near reality. You can't emote like a human being.
We make our own pesto. Our own chutney and jams.
I love all aspects of performance.
I hardly ever drink.
My father was the biggest influence on my own parenting because I became the complete opposite to him. He found it very difficult to show physical love, like cuddling and that kind of stuff, so I went the other way.
It must have been horrible for my parents to see me go from public school to comprehensive to detention centre to borstal. I was busy ploughing my own furrow, but I must have been a terrible worry to them, and for that I am sorry.
I'd done performance art sporadically from about 1976 - very personal street things on my own. Acting seemed like a natural step from that. But I didn't really want to 'be' anything: presenter, comic, actor. I just wanted to perform.
Growing up we were very working-class; you had dinner at 12, then tea at 4:30. If you got supper, you were doing bloody well.
Give me some grilled halloumi and a bit of hummus to snack on, and I'm in heaven.
I started out in comedy gigging and scraping a living together, and eventually worked up to doing shows at the Comedy Store in London in 1979. That led on to me presenting a show in the early days of Channel 4 called 'Whatever You Want,' which had live music and sketches.
I am certain things to certain generations. Lots of people remember me from the 'Comic Strip,' there was the 'Vindaloo' song for the 1998 World Cup, then it was playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in the BBC's 'Robin Hood.'
I always do things for myself and I don't care about what people think.
I didn't really do any acting until I was about 28. I just did odd jobs.
I have no ambition whatsoever. I don't know whether that's because I'm afraid of losing, or of failure - of not being the best.
We are governed by consumerism and it's terrible when that is all that life is geared to.
There's so much mythologising around me.
I don't like going to parties, I like having parties at home.
I've been on the edge of everything, like one of those characters at the side of a Brueghel painting with a warty nose. I've been very lucky - I lived through three of the most profoundly important musical revolutions of the 20th century: latterday rock and roll, punk and then the rave culture.
If the press can take the easy option, they will. To them, I'm always 'the wild man.'
A lot of what journalists write is drivel.
You can't learn how to have presence. I walk into a room and people say 'I wonder where he's been?' When other people walk in, they say 'I wonder where he's going?'
If everybody was a bank clerk, then I would be a rebel. But if everyone was a rebel, then I promise you I would go out of my way to be a bank clerk.
My whole life has been a holiday!
I love reading when I'm on holiday.
