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The Next Step Will Be For The Colonists On Mars To Throw Off The Hand Of The United States. There Will Be This Wonderful Historical Irony. When The People On Mars Write A Declaration Of Independence Saying, 'we Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident...', The Us Will Be Rather Pissed Off.

-Eric Idle

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The Next Step Will

Eric Idle

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The Next Step Will Be For The Colonists On Mars To Throw Off The Hand Of The United States. There Will Be This Wonderful Historical Irony. When The People On Mars Write A Declaration Of Independence Saying, 'we Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident...', The Us Will Be Rather Pissed Off.

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The Dreadful Thing About Getting Older Is You Cry At The Drop Of A Hat.

I Used To Think I Was Like The Wicket- Keeper, Which Is Like The Catcher In Base- Ball, Y'know What I Mean? You Can Call The Play A Lot From Behind The Plate, Y'know What I Mean? You're Not Necessarily The Star, You're Not The One That Makes The Mark, But Usually In The End, You're Called Upon To Get A Run When It's Needed.

No Day Of My Life Passes Without Someone Saying The Words 'monty Python' To Me. It's Not Bad.

To Me, The Musical Is Best When It's A Musical Comedy. So If You Have A Very, Very Funny Show, And Very Good, Funny Songs, That's What The Musical Does Best.

Know What I Mean? Eh, Eh, Nudge Nudge, Say No More?

I Always Have A Feeling You Should Move The Playing Field And The Minute You Know What You're Doing, You're Wrong. Therefore, I Wanted Us Not To Try To Follow Spamalot Immediately, But To Do Something Different. This Is Perfect Because It Uses All The Same Skills, Like Story Telling And Lyric Writing And Music Writing, But It's Presenting It In A Different Form. And Of Course It Gives Me And John A Nice Chance To Perform And Show Off Which Is Also Fun.

There's No Gap Between The Writer And The Performer, Which Is What I Think Makes [monty] Python Unique. Five Or Six People Who Write Python And Five Or Six Who Act It. That's What Makes It Unique.

I Never Think In Terms Of Target Audience. I Try To Write What Makes Me Laugh, So I'm The Target Audience. I Guess I Just Hope There's Another Person In America Like Me.

Target Audience

If The Studios Paid The Artists, How Would They Ever Be Able To Afford The Executives?

Never Do Things For Money. It's Always The Things You Do For Love That Turn Out To Pay The Best.

I Got Locked Into A Tradition [at Cambridge] Of Doing Comedy.

I Never Pay Any Attention To Figures.

One Of The Reasons We Moved To L.a. In The First Place [was] So That It Was No Big Deal That I Was In Show Business. We Decided If We Move[d] To L.a., Then Everyone In One Way Or Another Was Involved In It.

I Used To Collect Persian Rugs And Real Estate - You Should Be Able To Walk On And Live In Your Money. I Had To Give Up The Rugs Because I'm Allergic To Mould.

My Wife, Tania, Is Very Big On Dogs, So I'm Always Paying Out To Animal Charities.

You Could Write A Joke In The Pub At Lunchtime And Watch It Performed On Television That Evening.

Americans Like To Think 'python' Is How English People Really Are. There Is An Element Of Truth To That.

Writers Tend To Suffer From Back Problems Because They Spend Their Time Bent Over A Desk.

People Can Tell The Truth Much More Freely When They're Apparently Lying.

Telling The Truth

The Minister Of Transport Issued This Appeal To Motorists: Can Anyone Give Him A Lift To Leicester?

I Didn't Want To Be Big Mr. Ego Walking Around.

When I Was 23 I Started Writing For I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again And Was Paid Three Guineas For Every Minute's Airtime.

A Lot Has Been Said About Politics; Some Of It Complimentary, But Most Of It Accurate

I Like The Idea Of Being Out There Regularly With An Audience And With A Funny Gang Of People. That's What I Grew Up With - Doing Television, Doing Shows Every Week.

Well We Were Lucky Because We Started In Canada Where Everybody Has A Sense Of Humour! We Flirted A Little While With Josh Groban. He Was Personally Interested In It. He Said Oh I'd Love To Do Something Different, And I Said Well It's Pretty Different! But In The End The Dates Didn't Work Out.

I Believe In The Separation Of Church And Planet.

I Will Jump On Anybody's Private Plane At The Drop Of A Hat. I'm An Old-fashioned Lower-middle-class Boy.

I'm Not Really A Celebrity; I'm Just Vestigially Left Over From Doing Stuff From Before.

I Just Believe In A Huge Universe Of Billions Of Miles.

You Get Interviewed When You're Out Promoting Something.

I Interviewed Matt [stone] And Trey [parker], Actually, And I Got To Ask Them Questions. I Love Them Deeply Because They Appeared Dressed As J-lo And Someone Else [who Had Worn The Same Scandalous Dresses The Year Before At The Oscars]. They Confessed They Were On Acid.

I Won't Read Scripts Because I Have A Limited Amount Of Time. Why Should I Help Other People Do Lame Stuff When I Can Just Go Out And Put On Lame Stuff Of My Own?

At Cambridge, You Have To Kiss The Vice-chancellor's Fingers. But I Missed Out On That, 'cause I Was Doing A Matinee. I Don't Want To Kiss A Strange Man's Fingers Anyway.

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I Live In A Spanish-style Hillside Home In Los Angeles, California. I Paid $900,000 In 1995. It's Perhaps Worth About $3m Now. Thankfully, I Paid Off My Mortgage Before The Crash Because I Could See It Coming. I Worried That I Would Be Caught Having To Pay Off A Very High Mortgage For A House I Couldn't Sell.

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I Don't Like Animation. I Hate Animation, Actually.

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Learn To Trust Yourself. That's Very Vital. ... Just Stand With Yourself. Remember, In His Lifetime, Van Gogh Sold Only Two Paintings. I Personally Sold Even Fewer.

Funny Graduation

Having Little Money To Spend Was A Valuable Learning Experience. My Schooling Also Shaped My Work Ethic Because While Other Children Were Listening To The Goons, I Was Studying, Which Enabled Me To Go To Cambridge University.

Cambridge University

Bear In Mind The Simple Rule, X Squared To The Power Of Two Minus Five Over The Seven Point Eight Three Times Nineteen Is Approximately Equal To The Cube Root Of Mcc Squared Divided By X Minus A Quarter Of A Third Percent. Keep That In Mind, And You Can't Go Very Far Wrong.

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At Least In America, You Have Freedom Of Speech, Which Is A Good Thing. It's Just A Question Of Whether You're Allowed To Use It On 'fox News'.

Freedom Of Speech

What's Brown And Sounds Like A Bell? Dung!

I Pay Taxes In Three Countries, But Can't Vote In Any Of Them.

Life Has A Very Simple Plot: First You're Here And Then You're Not.

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The Idea That We Evolved With These Thoughts Is Actually Very Fascinating - To Me.

Subversion Is What I Do.

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You Could Feel The Place Going Crazy Because We Hadn't Been On Stage Together For Maybe 35 Years And The Audience Could Just Feel Us In The Darkness Come On And They Went Nuts. It Made The Little Hairs Stand Up On The Back Of My Neck And We Sang Sit On My Face, Which I Thought Was Wonderfully Appropriate For George's Memorial, And Then We Bowed And We Showed Our Bare Asses.

The Next Step Will Be For The Colonists On Mars To Throw Off The Hand Of The United States. There Will Be This Wonderful Historical Irony. When The People On Mars Write A Declaration Of Independence Saying, 'we Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident...', The Us Will Be Rather Pissed Off.

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