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" I have never sold my story, done 'Hello!' magazine, any of that stuff. I'm not guilty of exploiting my private life for cash and then saying, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about my private life.' I've never crossed that line. "

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" On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't he said, 'Do you mind if I mug you here?'. "

Paul Merton

Said

New York

Mind

" The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear. "

" When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil service, I really think I've won. "

" I was trying to organise my DVDs into a sort of chronological order, and I am afraid that it all trailed off after the Sixties. "

Paul Merton

Off

I Am

" When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'd eat ten daily - marvellous. "

" The economics favour one-man comedy shows: all you need is one person, a microphone and a PA system. But I'm pleased so many people are making a living out of comedy - it's a wonderful business to be in. "

" My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some indication of the misery I've endured over the past twenty-five years. "

" There's something magical about film, it's the ultimate for me, because it's kind of permanent - inasmuch as anything is. When I went to see Buster Keaton when I was about 14 and I came out of the cinema having really laughed at this film which had been made 50 years before, I thought: That's immortality. It's fantastic. "

" It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection. "

" I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't? "

" I really don't take any interest at all in contemporary comedy. "

" I never give anyone advice: it can backfire horribly. In the 1950s, Eric Morecambe told Ken Dodd to get his teeth fixed. But those teeth turned out to be one of Dodd's big selling points. "

" When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of humour. I don't mean - well, maybe I do - laugh at the hangman as he puts the noose around your neck. But an eye, an ear, for the ridiculous, the absurd in life, can get you through a lot. "

" In fact, I don't watch a lot of contemporary comedy for fear of being influenced by it. "

" At one point in the mid-Eighties I shared a promoter with the Smiths. One night, we were sitting backstage when Morrissey burst in, utterly distraught, sobbing his heart out. Turns out someone had thrown a sausage at him on stage during 'Meat Is Murder.' "

" I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedication, tunnel vision, pursuit of perfection, getting the gag right. "

" Well, sanity, I suppose, is getting people to see the world your way. "

" In a psychiatric hospital, a lot of people believe that people on TV are talking to them directly through the screen. I'm with about 500 of these people, and I'm on TV every Friday night. As I was queuing up for breakfast one morning, one guy nearly jumped out of his skin. My first thought was to go 'Woooo!' "

" Maybe there's a perception of me as grumpy old bugger who suffers from depression. It's a total misconception. I don't think of myself as any grumpier than the next person. I'm not even grumpy first thing in the morning. "

Paul Merton

Morning

Depression

" Am I allowed to call myself working-class now? Because obviously I'm now very rich. "

Paul Merton

Call

Myself

" I've never been disappointed by politicians. I've never invested that much in them in the first place. "

" And like the old stereotype, I overcame my shyness by making my friends laugh. "

" It was a bizarre existence I led in my early twenties - that cliche of the comedian who goes out and entertains a roomful of people and then goes home to a lonely bedsit was unbelievably poignant for me because that was exactly what I was doing. I had periods of real loneliness. "

" When I was nine I spent a lot of my time reading books about the history of comedy, or listening to the Goons or Hancock, humour from previous generations. "

" All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds - I can't stand Noel Edmonds. "

" I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can't understand is, if they don't know who you are, how do they know who your dentist is? "

" I looked at longevity in show business when I was about 13, and the people who seemed to have longevity were the ones who'd spent quite a bit of time learning about what they were doing before they made it. "

" If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating. "

" I don't always vote in general elections, but I think I've always voted Labour. "

" In 1987, I was in Edinburgh doing my first one-man show. I took part in a kickabout with some fellow comedians and tripped over my trousers and heard this cracking sound in my leg. A couple of days later I went into a coma and was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. "