Quotes by 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

Friendship

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

Freedom

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

Wisdom

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.

— Eric Idle

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

You look just like you!

— Eric Idle

Wisdom

The dreadful thing about getting older is you cry at the drop of a hat.

— Eric Idle

Wisdom

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

Happiness

I do pool exercises, like weightlifting but underwater. I walk, I swim... I'm pretty fit for an old bloke.

— Eric Idle

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.

— Eric Idle

Life

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

Love

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

Education

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

Life

No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.

— Eric Idle

Life

I love my family, my wife, my kids, my dogs, my home, my life. I am a very happy and contented man.

— Eric Idle

Love

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

Wisdom

If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

— Eric Idle

Wisdom

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

Love

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

Wisdom

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

Love

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

Wisdom

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

Success

Americans like to think 'Python' is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that.

— Eric Idle

Truth