Words matter. These are the best Arthur Smith Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Acting is the most demanding, painful job in the world.
The Bible has no doubt had much influence in its time, but it provides very few laughs. None, in fact.
I find it hilarious that there are academics who try to analyse chemical changes in the brains of students while exposing them to gags.
About every four years, someone says to me, ‘I’ve got a friend who looks exactly like you.’ What can you say to this?
Because comedy is cheap to put on: if you’ve got a play or an opera, there’s a whole load of people and a set, but comedy is just one man or woman. And because TV has learned to love comics – there’s so many more around now than when I started out.
Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.
The real change that paintings undergo is in the perceptions of the viewer.
It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket.
Give me the new thing and give it to me now. I don’t want that old thing – I’ve seen it, heard it, bought it, slept with it, loved it, but now I’m bored with the old thing and I’m gagging for the new stuff.
Acting in a stage play is like working the evening shift in an office.
The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper – perhaps Welsh rarebit – and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up.
I’ve always been interested in art.
I’ve been trekking the hills and lanes of the British countryside for nearly four decades now and I’ve come to associate my passion with overexcited poets rather than pampered painters.
The outfits come and go but there is a constant that I like about the catwalk model: the snotty expression.
Listening to Chris Moyles on Radio 1 is the most miserable thing any human being can do, but attending awards ceremonies isn’t far behind.
It’s worth turning up to an awards gig if you know you’ve won one but, since you never do know, it’s not worth it.
The moon puts on an elegant show, different every time in shape, colour and nuance.
The book may be garbage, but if it weighs in at a kilo or more, I stand before its author in awe.
If you want to write something of length, however modern and radical, you must live the life of an elderly gentleman of the 1950s.
Theatricals can be irritating, but will provide a better night out than mobile phone salespeople.
When synchronised swimming first appeared on TV, we laughed very heartily, and I, for one, applauded the decision to introduce humour into the Olympics.
When they meet a stand-up comic, people sometimes remark: ‘That must be the hardest job in the world.’ Among comedians, only Freddie Starr is not embarrassed and slightly appalled by this remark.
Sometimes it’s good to do something that you’ve never done before, so yesterday, I went out to buy Elton John’s new album.
Don Quixote’s ‘Delusions’ is an excellent read – far better than my own forthcoming travel book, ‘Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.’
My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can’t skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what’s going on.
Sky and clouds and trees and little figures relaxing in the perfect rural rhythm of their surroundings: these are the staples of a Gainsborough landscape.
An uninspiring canvas becomes a glamorous masterpiece when it is reattributed to a better-known artist.
I abhor nothing more than bumping into someone I know on the Tube.
Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.
Every generation of children has its private hero.
