Steve Coogan famous quotes

If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.
-- Steve Coogan

#Elude

The truth is somewhere in the middle of funny and serious.
-- Steve Coogan

#Serious #Truth Is #Middle

No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and even for people who aren't religious, you can learn things from religious people.
-- Steve Coogan

#Religious #People #Monopoly

That's what gives people hope - that you can still love someone from afar and you can still have those feelings across an ocean.
-- Steve Coogan

#Ocean #Giving #People

The one thing that gives you faith is the fact that people can be apart physically but they can still have an emotional connection.
-- Steve Coogan

#Emotional #Giving #People

I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.
-- Steve Coogan

#Smart #Laughing #Crowds

A lot of people can be very scared about making themselves vulnerable and appearing uncool. I don't really give a damn; as long as it's funny, I'll do it [make fun of myself].
-- Steve Coogan

#Fun #Giving #Long

Look at all those American preachers who got caught with their pants down. They say one thing and they are doing another. I try to be more honest about it, both in my thinking and my behavior.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #Trying #Pants

I don't apologize for my behavior anymore. Whatever I do or don't do shouldn't matter. Moral certainty is dangerous. Moral certainty is what makes people go to war unnecessarily and illegally. Morality, as any halfway intelligent human being would tell you, is a very subjective thing.
-- Steve Coogan

#War #Intelligent #People

It's like aversion therapy. You keep doing scenes over and over again with three women in the bed with you, and we had to do them all in one week. Three girls would step out and another three girls would step into the bed.It sounds like a fantasy but by the end of it, I just wanted to go for a hike on my own in the north of England, in the hills. Because it became a sort of "be careful what you wish for" kinda thing.
-- Steve Coogan

#Girl #Wish #Three

There were days when we used to say, what was in today's paper is tomorrow's fish-and-chip paper.When I became successful, I enjoyed myself a little.
-- Steve Coogan

#Successful #Paper #Littles

Depending on which side of the fence you're on, you could argue that the sexual liberation of the late '60s, led to women being emancipated in some ways. That they found a voice during that time, with feminism. It's complicated.
-- Steve Coogan

#Voice #Feminism #Way

When it comes to morality, I'd rather have an unfaithful president like Bill Clinton, who tried to reform welfare, than a faithful George Bush who propagated an illegal war on the rest of the world. So that is where my morality stands.
-- Steve Coogan

#War #Faithful #President

A woman wearing a revealing dress will always be sexier than a naked woman.
-- Steve Coogan

#Dresses #Naked #Revealing

When Americans talks about Europeans, they are thinking Britain and the rest of Europe. When we [ Britains] talk about Europeans, we talk about everywhere else.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #Europe #Britain

Look at the 18th century. There was a lot more freedom going on.
-- Steve Coogan

#Looks #Century #18th Century

The rest of Europe tends to be very comfortable with sexuality. The British and the Americans are kind of hung up about it.
-- Steve Coogan

#Europe #Kind #Sexuality

The fundamentalists are insistent that they know best. It's a dictatorial attitude towards personal morality, which is a modern creation that came about in the 19th century.
-- Steve Coogan

#Attitude #Morality #Creation

The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous.
-- Steve Coogan

#Sex #Real #Shy

There are conservative values where certain lifestyles are imposed and everybody should have 2.4 children and a dog and a cat and a house and you should feel like God and you should believe in God and you should be a capitalist. I don't buy any of that.
-- Steve Coogan

#Dog #Children #Believe

I like to do movies that provoke rather than reinforce conservative values.
-- Steve Coogan

#Conservative #Provoking #Values

What tends to happen in most movies is that strip clubs are used as a short hand for unsympathetic, sleazy people. And that's just a lazy cliché.
-- Steve Coogan

#Hands #People #Lazy

I'm getting older , so I'm quieting down a bit.
-- Steve Coogan

#Getting Older #Getting Old

As soon as I see period costume, I turn off. It's like hearing drama on Radio 4.
-- Steve Coogan

#Drama #Hearing #Costumes

Actors say they do their own stunts for the integrity of the film but I did them because they looked like a lot of fun.
-- Steve Coogan

#Fun #Integrity #Actors

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.
-- Steve Coogan

#Simple #Laughing #People

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.
-- Steve Coogan

#Morality #Virtue #Said

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.
-- Steve Coogan

#Tragedy #Comedy #Discomfort

Even great people are always slightly disappointing, which is generally what makes them interesting.
-- Steve Coogan

#Interesting #People #Disappointing

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.
-- Steve Coogan

#Writing #Odds #Two

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.
-- Steve Coogan

#Character #Play #Laughing

Two fat ladies, 88! Not that you'd find these ladies at a bingo hall, of course... they're altogether a higher class of fat lady.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Class #Two

Actually the best thing I did was to get thrown out by my wife. She's living with a fitness instructor. He drinks that yellow stuff in tins. He's an idiot.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Yellow #Wife

Convoy? Michael, you're hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Men #Use

Guide dogs for the blind. It's cruel really, isn't it? Getting a dog to lead a man round all day. Not fair on either of them.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Dog #Men

I woke with a start. At first I assumed I'd trumped myself awake again.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Firsts #Awake

All those people who go around saying Life begins at forty, they're notable by their absence. The nerve.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #People #Nerves

Got my fungal foot powder? Ah, it's a lifesaver, you know. I'd effectively be disabled if it weren't for these.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Feet #Powder

I don't like big feet. It reminds me of gammon.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Feet #Bigs

I'm gonna hump ya. Like Deputy Dog... Would hump ya.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Dog #Deputies

In my mind God made Adam and Eve, he didn't make Adam and Steve.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Mind #Adam

A friend of mine once said he like his women like his parmesan: strong smelling and shaved. I don't agree with that, but I don't like hairy women.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Strong #Said

Sadly, I can't say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place - Hell.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Father #Different

It's arguably the best newspaper in the world.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #World #Newspapers

Yeah, all drama teachers are very effusive, very demonstrative, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical.
-- Steve Coogan

#Teacher #Drama #Yeah

I try to not make safe choices, but I also like to do stuff which is interesting and is sort of exciting in some way and accessible.
-- Steve Coogan

#Interesting #Choices #Trying

I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #Views #Sick

Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.
-- Steve Coogan

#School #Different #Cabinets

Actually, bizarrely, in America, I get more appreciation from the odd, unusual stuff I've done, almost because I'm not, if you like, famous in America as I am in England.
-- Steve Coogan

#Appreciation #America #Stuff

When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.
-- Steve Coogan

#School #Thinking

When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.
-- Steve Coogan

#Careers #Ambitious #Students

When you see a crowd of people jumping up and down at a pop concert, all gloriously in the moment, I don't think you'll ever see a comedian there. They'll all be standing at the sides, looking at how it all fits together.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #Jumping #People

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being.
-- Steve Coogan

#Real #Giving #Tragedy

If it was just the potatoes that were affected, at the end of the day you will pay the price if you're a fussy eater.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #The End Of The Day #Pay

I'm 47, my girlfriend's 33; she's 14 years younger than me, back of the net!
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Girlfriend #Years

That was liquid football
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Football #Liquid

There's never any graffiti in the hotel. Although in the Gents a couple of weeks ago I did see someone had drawn a lady's part. Quite detailed. The guy obviously had talent.
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Couple #Guy

I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It's a result of what I do, not an end.
-- Steve Coogan

#Editors #Profile #Results

I find impressionists slightly annoying, really.
-- Steve Coogan

#Annoying

I don't think there's anything outside what comedy can address.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #Addresses #Comedy

I don't think I'm kind of universally known. I think in the indie world I'm probably better known than in some mainstream Hollywood terms.
-- Steve Coogan

#Thinking #World #Hollywood

I don't like new bands. I don't want to be one of those pathetic old men in their forties who knows exactly what 18-year-olds are into.
-- Steve Coogan

#Men #Years #Band

I don't go to premieres, unless I'm contractually bound to.
-- Steve Coogan

I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success.
-- Steve Coogan

#Successful #Culture #Privacy

I am of the very last generation who didn't have computers at school. As we grow old we'll become something of an aberration.
-- Steve Coogan

#School #Lasts #Generations

Hacking into a victim of crime's phone is a sort of poetically elegant manifestation of a modus operandi the tabloids have.
-- Steve Coogan

#Phones #Tabloids #Hacking

Comedy is unique in the sense that laughter is a palpable noise that everyone makes.
-- Steve Coogan

#Laughter #Unique #Noise

I have never wanted to be famous, as such - fame is a by-product.
-- Steve Coogan

#Fame #Wanted

I like the transience of Klimt paintings.
-- Steve Coogan

#Painting #Transience

You really have got lots of issues! Yeah, of 'What Car Magazine'!
-- Steve Coogan

#Funny #Issues #Car

It is not true that sex degrades women... if it is any good.
-- Steve Coogan

#Sex

There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them.
-- Steve Coogan

#Strong #Challenges #Doe

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.
-- Steve Coogan

#Character #Play #Challenges

I love Sherlock Holmes. I've got all his books, leather-bound. What I thought was great about Sherlock Holmes was that not only was he a supersleuth, he was also a hard worker. Not only did he go out and solve the crimes, he came home and wrote it all down. Fantastic. That's why I admire him.
-- Steve Coogan

#Book #Hard Work #Home

Two thousand years ago, the Holy family had a ramble from Nazareth to Bethlehem - in much the same way as I'm having a ramble from Norwich to Swaffham. Although I'm not comparing myself to Jesus - I don't want to get bogged down in that whole controversy again.
-- Steve Coogan

#Christmas #Jesus #Years

What I don't like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.
-- Steve Coogan

#Hip Hop #Hips #Hops

People regurgitate the same old cliches and it becomes like a photocopy of a photocopy of something that's vaguely interesting.
-- Steve Coogan

#People #Interesting #Cliche

If you do something very successful, you will then be defined by it.
-- Steve Coogan

#Successful

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.
-- Steve Coogan

#Kids #Thinking

But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.
-- Steve Coogan

#Simple #Laughing #People

Big comedy is good, I like things that are big, but good comedy has to be truthful I think and has to reflect some sort of reality.
-- Steve Coogan

#Reality #Thinking #Comedy