Film Producers From England

"After the revolution we will be broadcasting constant messages into a microchip inside your brains. It's gonna be great!"

"Noel Gallagher looks like a mum's mate."

"I'll riverdance while that's happening, 'cause it seems to be what I naturally do anyway."

"That diamond encrusted goat's skull is the height of good taste!"

"I'm genuinely and actually a bit like Jesus."

"This is Hollywood, mate. People bring chihuahuas round!"

"Oh no, my brain is broken."

"That's what keeps me alive, perversion and star quality."

"I believe Finland's economy is based on Moomin juice."

"Cilla Black: What are you like? Russell: A bit like Jesus but with an electric willy."

"That's right middle America, I loves Jemus!"

"Matt Morgan: Have you been thinking about your religion/new order? Russell Brand: Yes I have actually Matt, and I've got a few more theories for it to make it absolutely watertight. We'll all be living on a nice island, vegetarians doing yoga and that. We'll get rid of ideas such as the nuclear family and like in African tribes the word 'mother' will mean all female members of the tribe and the word 'father' will mean all male members. There will be a lot of [wolf whistles] … and also we're not going to have no more currency, stuff like that, no brain-bending or mind-washing and we'll all be free to explore ourselves although there will be an age of consent and it'll be the same as usual so as people don't go 'Oh no...'. Matt Morgan: Pretty watertight, isn't it? Russell Brand: Pretty watertight so far Matt, I'd like to see a political theorist drive a bus through that. If so where did he get his licence? As we're in charge of issuing bus licences and they're not issued to possible dissenters, who are immediately killed on traitor's cove; one of the nicest parts of our island, decorated with all lovely corpses."

"I love the BBC, it's a gorgeous organisation and it's just 'cos it's got vaguely socialist state-run tendencies that people like bloody old Rupert Murdoch coat it off in the Sun, and it's gotta stop!"

"It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you. No-one really feels self-confident deep down because it's an artificial idea. Really, people aren't that worried about what you're doing or what you're saying, so you can drift around the world relatively anonymously. You must not feel persecuted and examined. Liberate yourself from that idea that people are watching you."

"I keep hearing in my head "you are the Messiah, you are the Messiah". I think there's something wrong with my headphones."

"New York is basically a new version of York. But York just got a cathedral..."

"I don't like doing anything that makes you sweat if you don't come at the end of it."

"There's no shame in being second to Stephen Fry. Unless it's in a straight nose competition."

"Some people, I think they're called racists, say America is not ready for a black president. But, I know America to be a forward-thinking country, right, because otherwise, you know, would you have let that retarded cowboy fella be president for eight years? We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors."

"One minute, he's just a teenage lad in Alaska having joyful unprotected sex, the next minute: 'Get to the Republican Convention!' I think that is the best safe sex message of all time: 'Use a condom, or become Republican!'"

"I remember even thinking as a 15-year-old "this sounds alright, this stuff". I was quite impacted by it, and I was very unhappy about, sort of the way you were treated, but I think that Terry generally didn't mean to be rude. But the audience seemed... kind of... I don't know... sceptical, uncomfortable and odd."

"Inside there was a wall three feet away. And between the wall and the door, in this unbelievably tiny space, a girl in a lemon-coloured shirt sat at a desk, with word processor, potted plant, mug of pencils, furry gonk, and wadges of orange paper. It was incredible that anyone or anything could function in such a space. It was like suddenly discovering a family of otters in one of your shoes."

"The thing you have to realise about Hugh is that he was born prematurely disillusioned."

"He is one of those rare people who manages to be lugubriously sexy - like a well-hung eel."

"I've always thought of Hugh as a panda, probably because he's not naturally aggressive. Either a panda or an Opel Kadett."

"He's the real thing. Gifted, phenomenally intelligent, and wise."

"I always felt with Hugh that there was a secret waiting to be let out. He thinks a great deal. He is not good at selling himself. Of course, he's terrific at comedy, playing the amiables and idiots, but those who know him well, and not that many do, know that as well as doubt and insecurity he has great inner strength, huge depth and thoughtfulness."

"Dawn was definitely pulling into the station by now, and the snow had begun to throb with an electric, new-fallen whiteness. It climbed the inside of my trousers, and clung, squeakily, to the soles of my boots, and the bit just in front seemed to say ‘don’t walk on me, please don’t walk . . . oh.’"

"It was a beautiful afternoon; one to make you realise that God really can be very good sometimes with weather and scenery."

"It is the middle of December now, and we are about to travel to Switzerland - where we plan to ski a little, relax a little, and shoot a Dutch politician a little."

"They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture. It could rain in a room this big."

"I found a cab eventually, and told the driver in fluent English that I wanted Wenceslas Square. This request, I now know, is phonically identical to the Czech phrase for ‘I am an air-brained tourist, please take everything I have’."

"I was definitely getting the hang of this skating thing. I'd started to copy a fancy cross-over turn from a German girl in front of me, and it was working pretty well. I was just about keeping up with her too, which was pleasing. She must have been about six."

"People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it's never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we've ever read a book, that day doesn't fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls. In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over."

"We were walking through Hyde Park, going nowhere in particular, holding hands for a bit, then letting go as if holding hands wasn't one of life's big deals."

"Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless were going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes."

"The first item was fighting under the name ‘Crostini of Mealed Tarroce, with Benatore Potatoes’ and weighed in at an impressive twelve pounds sixty-five. The Ralph Lauren blonde came over and asked me if I needed any help with the menu, and I asked her to explain what potatoes were. She didn’t laugh."

"There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor."

"O'Neal had uttered three words: 'Conspiracy to murder.' The correct word for me to repeat in an incredulous tone of voice would have been 'murder'; a very small, and psychiatrically disturbed, section of the population might have opted for the 'to'; but the one word out of the three I most definitely should not have chosen to repeat was 'conspiracy'."

"This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed."

"I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he’d take it away. So he'll be like: 'You think this is going pretty well?' Then he'll go and send down some big disaster."

"[On his role in Maybe Baby] I was only allowed to wear a sock. But the only way to do the shot was to be naked. It's been my worst nightmare ever since the showers at school - I couldn't believe I was living it."

"I don't take off my helmet a lot of the time - that's one of the really good things about riding a bike. I can go all over the place and no one knows who I am."

"[on having children] They do make you less egotistical. I still manage to think about myself 98 per cent of the time, but at least there is a little window where others can impinge."

"I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness."

"I know a lot of people think therapy is about sitting around staring at your own navel - but it's staring at your own navel with a goal. And the goal is to one day to see the world in a better way and treat your loved ones with more kindness and have more to give."

"[On performing with an American accent] It's as if you're playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon."

"[Answering "What made you step up to making your own record?"] I felt like I may not get opportunities to do this ever again, so it’s about time—it’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something—I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any."

"[On the Swiss Dignitas assisted dying clinic] It's not a walk-in death. You don't just go in and say, "Here I am, do your worst". You have to go through a whole series of papers and re-examinations just to die. You have to fill in forms and things and go have to fly there, go back twice."

"He can be a generous host and a most entertaining companion but he can also be rude and a bully, as if it amuses him to confront the world in the guise of a self-made shit. It's hard to understand why this should be so. It can't be financial disappointment because God knows he has made enough money. Perhaps what gripes him is that he wanted to be a great director and never became one. Not enough for him, I suspect, that as a producer he has few peers among his contemporaries in the British film industry."