America's work ethic is non-stop; it's not even enshrined in law that workers have to get their two weeks holiday money. But Americans work harder than everyone else I can think of.

I don't watch a whole lot of stand up. Mainly I prefer to read writers; they make me laugh the most. Something gets you when you're alone and someone's voice is coming through their work. There's a different quality to it that stays with you a bit more.

I never really had a career, to be honest with you. I never in my life sat down and planned it. I have thought, 'Oh, I'd like to do this,' like anybody would. But I'm not the type that says, 'If I do this, it will lead to that.'

I don't go to different countries to criticise their political system and tell them what they should be doing - what do I know?

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room; you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything. I've written lots of material, but how do you memorise 90 minutes? That's one hell of a long speech. I've always had problems with that.

It's true that I have spoken about doing a book before, but then everyone you speak to is planning to write a book.

You're not going to learn anything if you're not prepared to go flat, so I'm very happy to go flat.

I get a phone call once every 18 months from some mad person who wants me to do something for less than no money and they give me about a week's notice. That's my film career, most of the time.

Showing off seemed to me to be a highly valuable and necessary activity when I was 20.

I fear we might be losing the basic human facility to be alone - and with that you throw out independent decision-making, what to trust, what not to trust; key stuff - a perilous loss.

I thought The Office was good, though I didn't think of it as a sitcom, just as a very good programme.

I don't want to do the same thing over and over again.

The characters can't be wittier than people are in real life. They have to be character witty.

As an Irish person, there's a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that's what we grow up with.

There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.

If I hadn't done this I might have ended up digging the roads.

The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job.

I'm actually about as famous as a fourth division footballer from the 70s.

I never thought I want to do anything, really, except not go to work properly and turn up at the same place every day and eat sandwiches in the same canteen, if I can possibly help it, as I don't think I'd be very good at it.

Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.

In the same way, there is some creature gnawing away inside of me, urging me to do things in different ways.

I write all the time, but you just want to be careful what you put out. That's all. You want to have the confidence that you've done what you need to do to it, because otherwise it's an exercise in vanity.

I draw hundreds and hundreds of pictures of sort of gnarly looking men, so I don't know what that tells you. People who look like... they're waiting for a sandwich that's never going to come. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I don't really think of myself as an actor.