Top 70 Ben Miller Quotes

I’d probably be one of these terribly over-protective parents whose children become a neurotic wreck because they’ve never been exposed to real life.

As an actor, it’s good to try to do new things, I think.

As a committed Whovian, I cannot believe my luck in joining the Twelfth Doctor for one of his inaugural adventures. My only worry is that they’ll make me leave the set when I’m not filming.

I’m not a ‘suffer in silence’ type; I’m a ‘let’s throw money at the problem’ type – I’ve done reflexology, reiki, psychotherapy, counselling. I’ve never actually had analysis, but I’d like to try that sometime.

I very much wanted the perfect nuclear family, and I came from the perfect nuclear family, but like so many people, that isn’t the way things have worked out.

I took my son to an exhibition about inventing things, and he was so inspired he started collecting toilet rolls and empty bottles for his own ‘inventions.’

Being away from my family for six months a year – even if it was in the beautiful surroundings of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean – was just too hard.

Definitely the most important thing in my life is being a father.

You need to take a little break sometimes. Then, hopefully, you get some more lead in your pencil, and you’re raring to go again!

I’d like to see the argument made for greater worldwide federalism, not just the European Union.

I adored ‘Drop the Dead Donkey.’ That show defined Channel 4 at the time; it was so inventive and off the leash.

I’d rather sink with a bad theory than swim with muddy pragmatism.

Personally, I think people need to get over this ‘being offended’ thing. Being offended does not give you the right to silence people. I get offended by things all the time – it’s just part of life. The right not to be offended is not a human right, especially in a democracy.

Nobody wants to get divorced.

You can reveal yourself on stage in a way that you can’t on TV. If you drop a character on TV, it’s death. Each character has to be ruthlessly, faultlessly played. But live, you can hint at what’s going on behind. You can let the audience in a bit and go off the script.

I get frustrated with films that entertain me but ultimately dodge a moral question about how you should try and live.

I live a pretty sedentary life, usually. I’m not an action man at all.

Things like ‘The Office,’ and arguably shows like ‘The Only Way Is Essex,’ are comedies, just using real people in real situations.

Children basically need one thing: to be played with.

Initially, the best thing about being in L.A. was the girls – they loved me. It was like being a pop star.

The first-ever job I had was in a play, ‘Trench Kiss,’ with Caroline Quentin and Arthur Smith.

I did a very stupid diet where you have three food groups, and you never eat them together. It’s so bloody tedious; I’m losing the will to live just describing it. I managed to stay very thin because you spent your life wandering around starving hungry looking for a chickpea to go with a chicken leg.

My kids are blissfully unaware of anything I do. I asked my four-year-old, Harrison, what I did, and he said, ‘You’re an electrician.’ He must have seen me changing a lightbulb.

Everything in politics is so stage-managed.

Life is a mystery: you’ve just got to go with it.

I was an early adopter of everything from Myspace to Twitter, and I think they’re just fads, like CB radio.

I got my first Mac in 1984. I’ve got an Airbook, iPad, iPhone, the lot. I love that blend of technology, creativity, and design.

This is a shameful thing to say, but I’ve never really got that ‘grown-up’ mind-set. I have to buy forks? Why?

I go back to L.A. as often as I can, and even if I’m there on business, I always add on a few extra days for pleasure.

I’m writing a science book – a sort of compendium of all the ways I’ve found of explaining things to my artsy friends over the years.

That was one of the amazing things about Doctor Who. Considering it is such an enormous charabanc, a centerpiece of international TV, it feels incredibly small when you are actually involved in it. It is very intimate, very small; it feels like a few people messing about with a camera.

It’s the classic thing – children’s TV gets watched by everybody, not just children. ‘Horrible Histories’ is the sort of thing everyone watches.

We all know to eat green vegetables and oily fish, but who does that? I’ll have a cake, thanks.

I work out in the Caribbean for half the year, playing a detective who’s really into science. Anybody who knows me will tell you that’s a dream come true. But it’s tough for my family. We only get to see each other every two and a half to three weeks.

Every meal is so important and colours the rest of your day – my whole day can go into a spin if I make the wrong choice at lunchtime!

Oh, I assure you, science is anything but boring.

I’m always a bit wary when people say in interviews, ‘I’m at the happiest place of my life that I’ve ever been.’ I think, ‘Really? Are you?’ Life is a mix, isn’t it?

Galactic plankton is undoubtedly out there, but it’s statistically highly likely there’s also another intelligent civilisation out there somewhere. Unfortunately, the distances and time differences are so great, communication might remain impossible.

I can be indecisive about things – and the less important something is, the more indecisive I am.

I’m a huge fan of French comedy. The French play comedy in a slightly different way than we do: they play it with a sort of realism that we don’t necessarily often do ourselves.

It’s great to do stuff that ‘gets you out of the house’ in a way – that gets you to meet other people!

I get dissatisfied really easily, and I have to constantly keep moving; I have to constantly keep doing things. I find it very hard to switch off.

I’ve turned down all sorts of good things accidentally, too. I read the script for ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ and thought, ‘This makes no sense.’ Then I went to the cinema to see it. Well, what an idiot.

Science is a hobby, and I’m really into it, but it’s not my job. My job is to learn about comedy and to make people laugh. Science, for me, is probably a bit like Danny Baker’s love of football or Rod Stewart’s obsession with train sets.

For me, one of the things art has to examine is how to live your life, and unless it’s doing that, it doesn’t work for me.

L.A.’s hippies are actually quite scary – more like Hell’s Angels than the Haight-Ashbury hippies of San Francisco.

I’m really spectacularly thick in all areas of my life except comedy and science. I’m crap at everything else.

I want to get across that science is something that we all have ownership of and we can all take an interest in. We don’t all have to understand complex theories, but we should have a working knowledge, like knowing your way round the engine of your car.

All men in their 40s want to be in rock bands, and I reserve the right to be in a pub band at some point.

I love the basic comedy of growing a moustache.

I’ve never really had a plan. You never know what’s going to happen.

There’s something wonderful about that sort of Poirot, Agatha Christie-style investigation: cross-questioning all the witnesses and checking their stories, looking for means, motive, and opportunity.

I enjoyed learning French, and I enjoyed speaking French.

My father was always clowning around. It was a huge influence on me. In my family, everything is turned into a joke.

Prostate cancer has taken a lot from me. First it took my grandfather and then my dad.

Ricky Gervais has jokes about people with disabilities, but do I think that’s a healthy thing? Yes, I really do, because he’s chosen his targets very carefully, and he’s thought about what he’s doing.

I’ve been going bald since I was about 17. I’m still hanging on to my hair for dear life, but I do sometimes wonder – should I get a wig?

The one thing that makes me laugh about the phrase ‘the worst week of my life’ is that nobody actually uses that phrase when something really bad happens.

You meet every different kind of possible person from different ethnic and cultural background, and after you while, you realise it’s all just people, isn’t it?

I studied physics at university, and I’m still a sucker for an experiment or scientific theory.

Science was always a passion, but I also loved ‘Monty Python’ and ‘The Young Ones,’ and I discovered the Footlights comedy club at university, where a lot of those people got their start. I had a go and loved it immediately. After that, I just couldn’t stop writing sketches, and it all took off from there.

More than anything, I enjoy making people laugh.

Comedy’s about things the way they are. It’s about the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be, and science is the same, really.

Actually I don’t mind the gym when I get there, but I hate the psychological battle I have to go through to get there.

I’ve always loved science, but I was never going to make much of a contribution. I’m better off having science as a hobby.

Acting and writing are the things I like doing. I don’t like presenting that much.

I used to fantasise about being able to stay up all night; now I fantasise about how early I can go to bed. Tragic isn’t it?