Top 55 Vic Reeves Quotes

If we tried to analyse our comedy, we might stop being any good at it.

When I was young I was shy around girls and never found it easy to talk to them.

If anything had happened to Bob, I wouldn’t have carried on. Me and Bob are a comedy unit.

We’ve always shied away from showbusiness.

Timidity has followed me throughout the years.

I like to produce something every day. The easiest way to get ideas out is to put them on paper. I like to sit back at the end of every day and think, ‘I created that today.’

I cook every day and find it really relaxing. I’ve got a huge amount of cookery books. It’s usually traditional British and French cooking, but then I’ll go off-piste.

You hear rumours of some double-acts who can’t stand each other. That can’t be true. You couldn’t do it.

If you do a double act for 30 years you kind of get a psychic thing going so you know what the other person’s move is and what they’re going to say and kind of predict… and you can send psychic messages.

Within comedy, macabre is the root, and a lot of art – Goya, Bosch, Dali – is macabre. Even Van Gogh, if he paints a chair, there’s an element of the macabre within it.

People who aren’t known for being artists do come in for criticism when they exhibit pictures. Paul McCartney, Tony Curtis, Mo Mowlam’s husband are all at it – and what’s to stop them? In my case, I don’t see the comedy and the art as separate at all – you’re just bending your creativity in a different direction.

I don’t think you should have to defend your actions to people who say: ‘You’ve put some paintings on a wall, and if this doesn’t have any deep meaning, then why?’ What about the Dadaists? What were they doing? Weren’t they just having a laugh with their tin hats?

That’s the Daily Mail for you, they’ll twist whatever you say and try and start a fight. They are terrible, awful gossip-mongers and troublemakers.

I suffer from bizarre dreams and epic nightmares.

I first came across Dada at art school in the early 80s. It was funnier and more anarchic than anything else I discovered. And it didn’t always have to make sense.

There are no statements in my paintings at all. Quite the opposite – I don’t like people to go looking for them. If something makes me laugh, that’s it.

Yeah, I was in a band called Trout.

I used to think I’d never get married or have kids. Peer pressure suggested I might be a lone wolf forever. I’ve always let life dictate its own terms. Marriage just happened.

I can’t be bothered with reality shows; I’d rather go and look through someone’s letter box.

I don’t really like British comedy.

I paint or sketch for two, three hours every day. It keeps me sane.

I remember ‘Virginia Plain’ being on Top of the Pops, and everyone was talking about it the next day. Eno was bald on top with shoulder-length hair at the sides, and he was wearing a feather boa and a silver catsuit.

It’s really a music hall act that we do.

If we started thinking, ‘Why’s this funny?’ we might start incorporating rules into it. I’d be suspicious that it would change the nature of what we do.

I’m a stoic. When something goes down the pan, enjoy it. Make the best out of a bad job. I’m not the sort of person who would break down and weep if my trousers split. It is funny, and I don’t really get embarrassed.

I know everything there is to know about women. I believe I’m a natural-born feminist.

I think my comedy’s probably the same as my art, which is kind of abstract, impressionist, emotional. You create an emotion and then you knock it down. You take something the way people are expecting it to go, and then give it a different conclusion.

My dad worked at night so he could spend more time in the day with us. He made that effort.

I couldn’t ever stand up in front of an audience on my own and talk to them. It would be awful; I couldn’t bear to do it.

People sometimes get ideas about us that are not of our creation. Journalists, for instance, have always wanted us to be something we’re not. They’ve said that we have a big student fan-base, but that’s simply not true. We have loads of older fans as well. Increasingly, ladies in their mid-fifties seem to like us.

Well, I wouldn’t say I am a keen gardener… I’m a gardener. Well, by that I mean I’ve got a very nice garden and have got some very good gardeners.

Out of all the isms, movements and manifestos of the 20th century, it was the Dadaists who proved the most important – giving birth, not only to a lot of modern art, but also shaping comedy, music and political protest.

Comedy and art go hand in hand, even if it’s not laugh-out-loud.

There’s not really a gap between my comedy and my art; it’s all the same thing.

The majority of people probably think that Damien Hirst is avant-garde. Look at the amount of people who say ‘What is this rubbish? Who is running our galleries? Why are they spending all this money on the avant-garde?’ That doesn’t make it avant-garde to me.

I think somewhere along the line probably Tony Hancock did an interview and claimed that he was terribly depressed, and that he was hiding his depression with comedy. So then it’s been used as a template for every comedian since.

They say Ant and Dec are a double act, but they are just presenters. They read off an Autocue and they don’t do gags, so that doesn’t count.

My playground growing up was the fields and forests.

You can be a really terrible actor – I won’t mention any names – but, as long as you’re good-looking, you can get by with it. Okay, Keanu Reeves. He’s a diabolical actor, but he still looks good.

My first crush was at the age of 10, on Emma Peel in ‘The Avengers.’ She was a powerful woman, which I found very appealing. It had something to do with the leathers she wore: they made her look strong and almost masculine, which is what you like when you’re that age.

In the 70s I started doing my Big Night Out on stage when I was at art school. A friend of mine owned a comedy club and sold it to me. I worked out quite quickly that if I did the comedy myself I’d make more money.

I can’t stand dogs.

We’ve always had people who don’t understand our humour.

I do one painting per day, I’ve always done that.

I don’t watch a lot of comedy really.

My mum used to paint and my dad did woodturning. We would spend our weekends at craft fairs and art galleries. That was just what we did. We were steeped in that world.

Once you become public, then whatever you do is public.

Journalists like to invent a person, and it’s not necessarily the person that they’re writing about. The image the tabloids try to create of me and Bob is very different from how we really are. They try to make us out to be mad jokers. But I wouldn’t want to put journalists down. That’s their job.

I love pineapple. You know, pineapple’s great on ham, and just on its own, and in a drink. It’s a very versatile fruit.

I was a pop star at one point, and I sang the ‘Shaun The Sheep’ theme.

You treat your body with the disrespect that you did as a young man and it starts catching up.

I always wear ladies’ scents. I like the smell of flowers and men’s scents tend to smell like burnt photocopiers.

I love seeing people create.

People think they are not allowed to laugh at art, but they are. Damien Hirst laughs at himself. I know Jake and Dinos Chapman and they laugh all the time at what they do and at other artists.

I’m not convinced that creative people have mentors because that’s what makes them different; they just do their own thing. If anyone had tried to tell me how to go about something, I’d have run a mile. But I have certainly had a few influences in my life.