Top 40 Noel Fielding Quotes

When we got quite big and were generating a lot of money through the arenas, we became quite a big thing, and a lot of managers appeared, and it became a big machine, like we were in Pink Floyd or something, and I don’t think we were into that. We didn’t really compromise.

I’ve never been to Hawaii. It looks amazing.

When I was 11, I was with my cousin in a scrapyard; there were three trains on top of each other, and we climbed up to the top. It was really high, and I nearly fell off, but my cousin grabbed the back of my shirt.

I’ve got quite a strong drive, and that can be slightly deplorable. Struggling to become a famous comedian – there’s something weird about that.

The best stuff comes out when you’re not making it for anything and you don’t really know what you’re making.

The Goons were always one of our favourites; we always felt we were in that tradition – Goons, Monty Python, Peter Cook, Vic and Bob, Spike Milligan. We felt we were part of that lineage, but in England, it wasn’t happening like that. There was a brand of comedy like ‘The Office,’ which was very real.

Kids love Lady Gaga because she’s a freak, and she’s one of the few people doing that, but unfortunately, Lady Gaga hasn’t got the tunes. She’s not David Bowie or Roxy Music.

My friends who have kids look like they haven’t been to bed for a year.

I can’t write unless I’ve got the voice for a character.

When you’re 14 and you’re with your friends, you laugh about really stupid stuff, but as you get older, the laughter inside you dies. When you’re older, you need a bit of help.

The trouble is, the older you get, it’s hard to find time to make a film: it’s a year to write, a year to get money, a year to make it, a year to edit. It’s four years of your life.

I always had a sort of niggling regret that we didn’t come do stuff in America.

A Boosh fan bought me an original copy of ‘The Jungle Book’ – like, the first print from 1894 – so I’ve just started re-reading that and am really enjoying it. But the last book I read in its entirety was ‘Willard and his Bowling Trophies,’ by Richard Brautigan, which is amazing.

On my show, nobody’s being paid more than me. I don’t ask what they’re being paid – I just make sure they’re not getting more than me.

When we went to America, Robin Williams came to the gig, and Mike Myers had lunch with us and wanted to write a film for us. We’re idiots – we turned it down. I think we were just sick of each other at that point. When you get famous, it takes some time to realise it isn’t going to be good.

I think I’m constantly surprised that adults can’t deal with illogical things or thing that are weird or psychedelic. I’ve never really lost that.

I guess standup is really painting pictures with words – especially for me, as I describe quite fantastical, visual things. My art teacher, Dexter Dalwood, always seemed to think they were linked. We bonded over our love of Vic Reeves.

I make an all right Bowie. Actually, I look more like Cilla Black with that wig.

It is scary playing someone you know. You don’t want to let him down.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time; you can only please some of the people some of the time.

I bought two sculptures of two baboons called Lord and Lady Muck on an antique piece of furniture from an art exhibition, and it was quite expensive. It was very expensive, actually – way too expensive.

My mum and dad are quite hippyish, so I’m pretty naive. I take everyone at face value.

I’m involved with this exhibition, which is a collection of Nobby Clarke’s photos of the opening night of my own art exhibition.

The combination of us two was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You meet someone, and you just work, you have chemistry on stage, and writing.

I started writing sketches when I was 13. I liked Vic Reeves, Fry and Laurie, and Paul Merton, and I thought you could just send sketches to the BBC, and they’d go, ‘Great. We’ll put these on telly.’ But I gradually realised that you either had to go to university and join a club, or do standup.

Fame is a bit Nietzschean. For everything good, something bad happens to you, so you have to sort of be careful.

I believe in fate. I didn’t set out to be a comedian at first. I’m still not sure if I am or not.

I loved being a man-woman. It’s much more interesting than being one or the other.

A lot of people think I must be like Vince Noir. He’s a bit like a child. He doesn’t have any malice. He’s even friendly to monsters. I am like that, I guess. I talk to anyone.

I quite like bacon sandwiches because they’re colourful. Mashed potato on toast is fine. But colourful and easy to eat is best.

I played football for a long time when I was a kid, and then I went to art college and turned my back on it. Because of that, my toes are mangled; they’ve been broken. They’re like hooves or talons. They’re disgusting. I’d never get them out.

I was in a band with a boy who was quite androgynous and a bit bisexual, and we used to play up to that a little bit to be provocative in a theatrical way, but I guess you either are or aren’t.

I hate my feet. I don’t like my hands, either: they’re like lions’ paws. When I was in the Boosh, in a catsuit and gold heels, I was constantly thinking, ‘I hate the way I look.’ I should have just enjoyed myself, because that was as good as it was going to get.

I love the Marx Brothers.

People like to put you a box. I’ve always been the wrong shape. Maybe you are, too. I think all the people who are wrong shapes for boxes should go out and march into the streets singing, ‘We are the shapes! We don’t fit the box.’

I’d rather do smaller theaters, because it’s more fun for the audience and more fun for me. I like to build up demand.

They were too young to be proper parents. They never said, ‘You’ve got to go to bed or you’ll be tired for school’. They didn’t mind – they let me stay up.

I think the more you party and the more you get drunk, the more your soul starts to evaporate, and eventually, you’re just a husk. So you have to go to the gym and build your soul up again.

I get more work when I’m thinner. I was playing Alice Cooper, and I had to lose a stone, so I wasn’t eating sugar. You can’t just get straight back onto sugar, as it’s quite a powerful thing.

I just like magical, fantastical stuff. I don’t really see it as surreal when I’m writing. It’s just, I write, and then I have an idea, and usually, they’re quite odd.