The whole point of the Windsor dynasty is they're terrifically dull.

[on frequent Have I Got News for You (1990) guest Boris Johnson] People always ask me the same question. They say, 'Is Boris a very very clever man pretending to be an idiot?', and I always say, 'No.'

[on the death of Freddie Mercury in an interview] Queen were a third-rate glam rock band.

We've done articles in Private Eye about people who've gone through the appeals process and have been exonerated. They would be dead! The Death Penalty is not a deterrent if we kill the wrong people.

[on Tony Blair] In the early days we were doing jokes about how he's susceptible to spin, he doesn't know what he thinks. Nowadays he does know what he thinks and that's much more frightening. So over the years our version of his comic voice has gone from bright-eyed and enthusiastic to sort of bitter and mad.

[on his and Paul Merton's behavior towards Angus Deayton] We didn't stab Deayton in the back. We stabbed him in the front.

It is no longer acceptable in British politics to be fat or eccentric or religious.