Billy Connolly

I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.

Don't tell me how to do my job. I don't come to your workplace and tell you how to sweep up.

Did your mother never tell you not to drink on an empty head?

I started to draw desert islands. They were just rough, shapes in the middle of the page. Then I began drawing shapes within those shapes and I was amazed how quickly the islands got better. It took off from there.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can't always hear what people in the audience are saying.

I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days.

I don't have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I've done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that's mostly what I'm offered.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

Ally MacLeod thinks that tactics are a new kind of mint.

Fame is being asked to sign your autograph on the back of a cigarette packet.

As soon as I got successful, the Scottish press started picking on me. It's something they reserve just for me.

Once you become successful, people know where you live, the type of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, and so it would be patronising to go and talk like a welder. Welding's a mystery to me now. You can't go back, your life changes every day.

I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.

I'm a citizen of the world. I like it that way. The world's a wonderful. I just think that some people are pretty badly represented. But when you speak to the people themselves they're delightful. They all want so little.

I don't aim to offend.

I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place.

I still do my comedy and my performance stuff and my acting so it's not all-consuming. But I do find myself drawing more and more these days.

Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don't sit in the dark hiding. It's easy to hide and shout and waste people's time.

There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.

Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosey... Doesn't try it on.

If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican first name?

The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll look exactly the same afterwards.

I have been made redundant before and it is a terrible blow; redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless.

I don't know why I should have to learn Algebra... I'm never likely to go there.

I like Dali and Magritte. I also like the Scottish artist John Byrne, another surrealist.