Top 60 Russell Howard Quotes

Seinfeld’ was never a show in the U.K.

I get panic attacks about dying, it’s terrible. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and my brain goes ‘you’re going to die, you’re going to die, you’re going to die.’

I have a friend called James who is in his 40s and he’s still not allowed to swear in front of his mum. I find it strange that you can’t be yourself and be open with the one person who brought you into this world.

My life is quite normal and for me it helps with my comedy. If you jump headlong into celebrity life it affects who you are and what you talk about.

I’m a very early riser on holiday. I am invariably down at the pool on a sun lounger even before anyone can put a towel on one.

Portland is incredible. It’s the most amazing place.

I did a stand-up performance on Conan O’Brian, which was great, but it’s not for me. I prefer England.

I bought my mum a car, and I bought my brother one of those hoverboards for Christmas, and I bought my family a holiday to Australia.

Because I don’t wear a suit, and have such a horrible boy band face, people assume that I’m not doing satirical material.

Whenever the word ‘weird’ is mentioned it can only be an insult.

Los Angeles feels empty and overrated. I struggle with it as a holiday destination. It’s the sort of place where you need to know some locals, otherwise it just feels so empty.

Britain is perceived as a laughing stock and a mess. It’s a very scary and divided place.

When you are doing stand up, it is the most glorious hour, when you are an X-Men version of yourself, with lasers coming out of your eyes.

I buck the trend: I eat avocados on a Sunday morning and I’m a homeowner.

There’s a club called Headliners in Chiswick where I do a lot of my warmups for tours. For me it’s a nice ‘big-small’ room: it’s a 300 seater, which feels small but you can still get big laughs.

It’s just a joy travelling with your job. You get to wander around these interesting cities and then things happen or you observe things and you go on stage at the end of the night and chat about it.

I’m quite good at talking about things I care about.

But I did break my mum’s heart, because I turned down ‘Strictly’ twice. I just couldn’t do it. It’s not for me.

I spent a lot of my childhood sat on a wall thinking, waiting for my mum to pick me up.

Audiences around the world are all pretty similar. People just rock up and want to have a laugh, although Americans whoop more than English crowds.

Genuinely, the first gig I did when I was 18, it felt like the world shifted. I realised that I had stumbled upon a mechanism through which you could view life.

Everything I experience in life, I put through the sausage-maker that is comedy, and then try to make it funny for others. Whether that is healthy or not remains to be seen.

I always found it strange, when I went round to other people’s houses for tea and that, how strict their parents were.

I don’t like doing things badly, that just feels like a waste of a day.

The hit rap duo Kris Kross wore their trousers backwards, in the Nineties, and I wore my trousers backwards to a school disco. It led to some bullying.

Sometimes improv doesn’t work on TV because the audience had heard the thing that was shouted and they’re very much alive, the audience in the room – they’re alive in that moment. Whereas the audience sat at home on the sofa, it feels like it’s part of a party that they haven’t been invited to.

I found out recently that my ‘Good News’ show has a big following in North Korea and the Vatican City! Who knew Kim Jong-un and the Pope liked fast-paced satire?

Mum’s side of the family are daft, beautiful and brilliant.

The last thing you want to do is preach to the converted. What you want to do is talk about issues from a non-political point of view, from a human point of view.

I would just like to be remembered.

I’m not really a cake man. I’m more a savoury guy.

It’s a bit of a cliche but throughout London, even in places like Notting Hill, you’ll see utter luxury alongside council flats – it shows the tapestry of life and I adore that.

It takes a lot to stop myself scrambling around and reading the news.

Most comics’ first gig is either brilliant or horrific.

I’m happy when I’m working.

It’s really frustrating when you write a show and it’s really funny and someone and from Standards and Decency says, ‘You can’t put that in because it has a naughty word.’

I don’t really do any corporate gigs or I don’t really cash in which is a bit silly and much to the annoyance of my family. I’d rather just do gigs that I like and TV shows that I like rather than personal appearances at a nightclub.

The British Museum is great for seeing how excellent we were at stealing things.

Chappelle is incredible. He is comfy on stage and he talks about big things and small things. He’s a version of himself. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be and hopefully I still am.

Neither me or my wife are any good at cooking.

I just assume a lot of people hate me. You just have to suck it up.

I love Dublin and the locals are extraordinary.

I do cryotherapy, which is where you’re in minus 70 and you have three minutes of deep freeze and your body thinks it’s dying so it produces loads of blood cells and then you’re fine – apparently.

I think you just have to be comfortable in your own skin, and when I do stand-up or the show I’m in a really good mood.

I never really wanted to be on telly.

I don’t want to be one of those comics who says, ‘Hey, what’s wrong with air travel?’ and stuff like that.

If the front-page news is a comedian doing a joke that people think is naughty, that proves there’s no real news that day, does it not?

I’d been writing jokes since I was 16, not very good ones though, but I was always trying to make my mates laugh.

In the summer Regent’s Park is one of the best places in the world with every nationality playing every sport.

I’d like to have kids.

Tommy Tiernan is an Irish comic who I believe is one of the finest in the world.

Doing the O2 Arena in London in 2011 was pretty awesome.

I don’t really have a political agenda, I just like things to be fair – I get angered by pomposity and privilege.

Yeah, I’d love to write a film, that’d be great.

I’m really not into technology at all. My brother has to plug the Xbox in for me.

I lived at home until I was 23.

I don’t want to do a rabidly left-wing show. I think it’s much more interesting to turn the knife on yourself.

‘Monty Python’ was never on TV in the U.K. when I was a kid.

Oddly, I am really cool under pressure.

I broke my wrist on TV trying to do a one-armed push-up. A lot of people delight in pointing this out to me.