Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Bob Mortimer

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English comedian Bob Mortimer.

Last updated on April 14, 2025.

Robert Renwick Mortimer is an English comedian, podcast presenter and actor. He is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob comedy double act, and more recently the Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing series with comedian Paul Whitehouse. He has also appeared on panel shows such as Would I Lie to You? and Taskmaster.

English - Comedian | Born: May 23, 1959

Source: Wikipedia

I've started to get iritis, which affects the eyes. But I'm not going to give in.

Bob Mortimer

I spend a lot of money on the little things that make me happy, like 3 falafels from M&S to eat on the train on the way up to Edinburgh, but I do keep a close eye on the bigger picture. I don't flash the cash ridiculously on expensive things.

Bob Mortimer

I don't feel scared about death, I just feel so frustrated and sad to think I won't see how stories end. My children's story. My wife's. The football. All the stories going on in the world that you're going to miss the end of.

Bob Mortimer

I go on 'Sunday Brunch' and Simon Rimmer's mashed potato is like heaven.

Bob Mortimer

I come from the era when that continental stuff, the skimmed yogurt and a croissant, was a healthy start to the day.

Bob Mortimer

I didn't think I had time for fishing before I fished.

Bob Mortimer

We can write idiots quite well.

Bob Mortimer

I hardly do any exercise because of my arthritis and my joints.

Bob Mortimer

It's like cooks don't watch cooking programmes - I suppose maybe comedians don't watch comedy shows.

Bob Mortimer

We miss 'House of Fools' a lot. It felt a bit like a different and fresh show for British TV.

Bob Mortimer

I love 'Big Brother.' I adore it. What can I say. It just suits me fine.

Bob Mortimer

I played for Middlesbrough's youth team. At the age of 16, I went into a shed at the training ground and was told that they weren't signing me on, so that was the end of that dream. Football was my life. I played football when I got to school, football every break and football as soon as I got home.

Bob Mortimer

I get tempted to do a reality show because I enjoy them so much.

Bob Mortimer

When you've had a heart thing, a lot of the problems are psychological.

Bob Mortimer

When we first did 'Big Night Out,' there was no chance of someone doing a little show in a pub then being on telly. There was a little Oxbridge route in and an old-fashioned variety route.

Bob Mortimer

I was just a toddler when my dad died in a car crash. With my mum, Eunice, being a young widow with a large family, she really struggled money-wise.

Bob Mortimer

We miss 'House of Fools' a lot. We always enjoyed doing that; it felt a bit like a different and fresh show for British TV, so we always feel attached to those sort of things.

Bob Mortimer

I hate every moment of live performance.

Bob Mortimer

After my triple bypass I got my sheet of healthy and unhealthy foods and I was like, croissants!?! Literally as bad as lard.

Bob Mortimer

Laughter is the only currency I've really ever known. Ever since I was a boy.

Bob Mortimer

When they told me I had to have a heart operation, my main memory is standing in my kitchen and thinking what I would really miss was my little tea towel. Not for one minute did I think, 'Oh, I'm going to really miss performing.' The things you're going to miss are your wife, your egg cup, your seat that you sit in to watch TV.

Bob Mortimer

I have always been a bit of a recluse, but I really was after the heart thing. And everyone knew.

Bob Mortimer

I sometimes wonder, with the Oxbridge comics, the broadcasters seem to say, at some point, now I trust you to do a documentary, you can be the voice for a maths show, or whatever. I don't think we're ever considered in that way.

Bob Mortimer

I hate dinner parties, you know, can't stand them. Friends don't bother inviting me any more, because they know I won't come. I could never think of anything to say between courses - it's a confidence thing, I suppose.

Bob Mortimer

Comedy, if it didn't save my life, certainly gave me a very different life.

Bob Mortimer

I've been brewing my own beer with this ex-army bloke.

Bob Mortimer

When I was about 13, I went to see this band called Free, who I'd never heard, and I just fell in love with them. I found my heroes. I stood at the front with my chin on the stage.

Bob Mortimer

I was so young when my dad died that I didn't think it had affected me. I had such tiny memories of him, just little glimpses, I thought I had been unaffected. But then I realised, somewhere in my late 40s I think, that probably the defining thing in my whole life was losing my dad.

Bob Mortimer

There are quite detailed rules with sitcom. When people can leave scenes, act structure, joke rhythm. You can't not have a straight man.

Bob Mortimer

I am allowed one matchbox-sized piece of cheese a week.

Bob Mortimer

I thought I had a chest infection and went to the doctor - five days later I was under the knife. It came completely out of the blue. My arteries were 95% blocked.

Bob Mortimer

When you have a house full of children, there's never a quiet moment, so I like getting out in the garden for a bit of time to myself.

Bob Mortimer

We've always been a slightly specialist interest, and as you get older, for specialist interest programmes I think broadcasters are probably looking for younger talent, really.

Bob Mortimer

There's nothing better than just staring at a buttercup, struggling to make an impact on the world.

Bob Mortimer

Funnily enough, 'Shooting Stars,' that stupid little panel show, is the most influential thing we've done.

Bob Mortimer

We live very ordinary lives.

Bob Mortimer

Other people just look so comfortable with a book in their hands - I never feel like that.

Bob Mortimer

I like having something I can watch every single night. It suits my habits.

Bob Mortimer

A lot of comedians want people to listen to them. I don't think we've ever been that bothered about whether people would want to listen to us.

Bob Mortimer

I saw Alan Davies on a show from the London Palladium and he did a nice routine about having kids or whatever. I couldn't do that.

Bob Mortimer

It can be very lonely knowing that you have things to say but you daren't say them. Knowing that you could contribute to something but you don't dare quite do it.

Bob Mortimer

My doctor told me that I would have had a heart attack on stage.

Bob Mortimer

Throughout my entire three years at Sussex I never spoke to another law student. I talked in tutorials but as soon as they finished I was away back to my room to listen to my records.

Bob Mortimer

My shyness probably defined the first 30 years of my life, really. It's a crippling thing. It can be very lonely knowing that you've got things to say, but you daren't say them.

Bob Mortimer

At one point I was putting 17 sugars in my tea. I know it's unbelievable and I do wonder sometimes what my mum was thinking to allow it. The weirdest thing was that if I had 18 teaspoons it was too sweet.

Bob Mortimer

I wouldn't wish it on people but there is a positive side to a near-death experience. People used to ask me do you fancy doing this or that - and it was like I had a file of reasons in my head for not doing things. I would riffle through it until I found one. But I've dropped that.

Bob Mortimer

I can't remember ever cooking food to impress a woman. The idea's quite cheesy and sort of makes my skin crawl. But I sometimes make a special effort to impress my cats, with chicken liver or something. It's tricky to know if a cat's impressed. They might give me a little look, a glimpse at least. That's cat ownership for you.

Bob Mortimer

I think 'the Mighty Boosh' are quite good.

Bob Mortimer

We've ignored audiences all these years. We've just amused ourselves and hoped enough people would want to eavesdrop to make it all viable.

Bob Mortimer

I'm not a fan of stand-up comedy, personally. But some of them are incredibly skilled.

Bob Mortimer

With everything, 'Shooting Stars' included, we'll just have some words on a card to prompt us - 'How would Rod Stewart die,' that kind of thing - and we'll just run with that idea, as if we were talking to each other, messing around. And I'm no scholar of these things, but I think that's what double acts should do, isn't it?

Bob Mortimer

There are a lot of famous people who started out with us and became stars and I wouldn't swap my life with theirs for one second.

Bob Mortimer

I want people to watch us and think, 'They're idiots. They're clowns,' I want them to watch us and think Tommy Cooper or Spike Milligan.

Bob Mortimer

I don't think 'Shooting Stars' has ever successfully been replaced.

Bob Mortimer

In broadcasting, there's a lot of longevity offered to people like Griff Rhys Jones and Stephen Fry, who are polymaths more than comics. We're comics first and foremost.

Bob Mortimer

I worked in a chicken factory, in a steel foundry, I worked on the bins for a year or so. It started as a summer job, but I stayed on because I liked it very much. I liked it that it made you very fit, doing all the lifting and that, so I could wear short-sleeved t-shirts, which I'd never been able to do before!

Bob Mortimer

I'm not that interested in other people, and I don't have any friends, so I'm not really the ideal candidate for Twitter.

Bob Mortimer

After heart surgery you can go two ways, you can kind of get scared, shrink on to your sofa and keep yourself safe, or you can engage with life again. I probably was in danger of taking the first option.

Bob Mortimer

I was a solicitor once, so I'm truly grateful because I know what it's like to have a proper job.

Bob Mortimer

Darts is bad.

Bob Mortimer