I'm very odd 'cause I think there's more than just a materialist planet, a materialist, reductionist planet.

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.

While you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the breakthrough.

Telling people how to be creative is easy - being creative is difficult.

Nothing will stop you being creative more effectively as the fear of making a mistake.

It's easier to be creative if you've got other people to play with.

The most creative people have learned to tolerate the slight discomfort of indecision for much longer and so, just because they put in more pondering time, their solutions are more creative.

If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies... Do it in the 'closed' mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the 'open' mode... because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.

To be creative you must create a space for yourself where you can be undisturbed... separate from everyday concerns.

I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.

Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have. It is, for example, and this may surprise you, absolutely unrelated to IQ, provided you're intelligent above a certain minimal level.

Laughter is the best creative medicine.

High creativity is responding to situations without critical thought.

We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.

Creativity is not the possession of some special talent. It’s about the willingness to play.

This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.

Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.

Manuel will show you to your rooms - if you're lucky.

years ago we would have been burned for this. Now what I am suggesting is that we've advanced.

A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed.

Yes it's her husband. She hasn't got over it. Died thirty years ago.

Oh, I could spend my life having this conversation - look - please try to understand before one of us dies

When we hold a World Championship for a particular sport, we invite teams from other countries to play as well.

The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.

Most of the bad taste I've been accused of has been generic bad taste; it's been making fun of an idea as opposed to a person.

The trouble with the British is that they are not interested in ideas. If Jesus came back today and offered to speak for an hour on British television, they would say, "What! Another talking head?

We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.

Laughter is a force for democracy.

I started to make harder jokes before anyone else did. And the producers would get anxious. They'd say, 'That's a little bit hard-edged, isn't it?' And I'd say, 'Let's just try it and see how the audience reacts. If they don't like it, let's cut it out.' And the audience roared with laughter, so I learned you could do this harder humor and people loved it.

Laughter destroys any divisions between people.

I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.

I had not seen it for a long time and was suddenly embarrassed to find that I was laughing more than anyone.

That's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

Students who laugh more- learn more. Students who laugh more earn more.

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas

Tension is wonderful for making people laugh.

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.

When you do comedy in front of an audience, they are the ones who tell you whether it's funny or not and which bits are funny and which bits need to be fixed.

By watching the great, old comedians I picked up a few tricks about how to do physical comedy. And whenever I could learn something, I sort of added that to my repertoire.

Bureaucrats shouldn't be in charge of comedy.