71 Quotes by Paul Merton

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 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.

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?

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

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.

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

If you stay in a house and you go to the bathroom and there is no toilet paper, you can always slide down the banisters. Don’t tell me you haven’t done it.

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

When I turned about 12 or 13, I realised that being funny wasn’t about remembering jokes. It was about creating them.