Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours. – Eric Idle
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
Americans like to think ‘Python’ is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that. – Eric Idle
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
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
I listen to the audience and try and bounce with them. All audiences are different. But they are all homo sapiens. – Eric Idle
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man. – Eric Idle
No day of my life passes without someone saying the words ‘Monty Python’ to me. It’s not bad. – Eric Idle
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
I do pool exercises, like weightlifting but underwater. I walk, I swim… I’m pretty fit for an old bloke. – Eric Idle
Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have. – Eric Idle
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
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
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
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
