Top 166 Quotes & Sayings by Eddie Izzard - Page 2

It's a historical thing, up to the 19th century the English hated the French. Then in the 20th century the English started to hate the Germans - as we began to move alphabetically through the map of the world. Now, the year 2000, we are fine with the Germans... but the Hungarians are pissing us off.

You say 'erbs, and we say Herbs because there's a f*****g H in it!

Because that's what narcissism is all about; looking in the mirror everyday and thinking 'Damn, I'd like to shag myself.'

I'm working on a speed boat at the moment. Much more exciting. It'll really kick ass, give great photographs for the people in Bible.

I want to be a taxidermist! I wanna fill animals with sand. I wanna get more sand into an animal than anybody has ever bloody got in one. I wanna fill a rat with the entire Gobi Desert, so it’s really quite tight.

If you think about determination, if people have a heart and are determined, they can get to that place. But there are a lot of negative people who were enormously determined. All the Nazis were determined. They wanted to murder everyone. Everyone with a bad heart, who doesn't care about people, I wish they hadn't started.

Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!

We have two hundred languages in Europe. Two hundred languages! Count them! I know you won't!

I did bronze survival swimming. I could save people in a bronzey kind of way.

My sexuality is straight transvestite or male lesbian. It seems we are beyond the idea that I am gay and hiding it. If I had to describe how I feel in my head, I'd say I'm a complete boy plus half a girl. I don't seem to have the sixth sense that women have or their stronger senses of taste and smell. Gay men can also have it but straight men don't.

We must have been hunters and gatherers but some of us were just waiters and hopers.

I don't believe in God. I believe gods and devils are within us. It's our own battle. Our life's battle is to appeal to the gods within us, and to fight the devils within us.

Comedy is like a very cokey, druggy sugar. You get hits of comedy, and it's very, "More, give me more of that stuff," because serotonin is being released in the brain. So it's basically, everyone becomes serotonin junkies, and we are serotonin dealers. And that's what being a comedian is about.

Racist people, interestingly, are never as polite as smokers. Have you noticed that? Smokers always go, "Do you mind if I smoke? Oh, you do? Okay, I'll go outside and have a cigarette."

Puberty is the sickest joke God plays on us. So you're just noticing members of the sex: "Girls girls, ooo". Naturally you want to look your best, and God says "No! You will look the worst you've ever looked in your life!"

I wear whatever I want whenever I want. I don't call it drag; I don't even call it cross-dressing. It's just wearing a dress.

I don't believe in God. So I'm a non-believer in the non-visible. I'm a believer in us; in humans.

My dad said, "As long as you're happy." I used to think it was kind of a very simple idea or philosophy because he wasn't religious. But you've got to try and be happy. And if you're not happy, you can't help anyone else. So obviously, some crazy people could go to places, but I just think you need to be content within yourself, so that's the thing.

What was the first cat that talked a human into putting a cat door in?

They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.

Your eyes flashed fire into my soul. I immediately read the words of Dostoyevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, I FANCY YOU!

I just believe in the goodwill of people, the power of people to do something positive.

This is a world that's big enough for everyone. I like that message in that comes out of John Lasseter, and it comes out Pixar, it comes out of the Apple, Google, the Ben and Jerry's thing. These are American companies that send that message around that is good, that is healthy. And everyone goes, "That's the America I always believed in before Watergate."

There's a thing about trying too hard, which I think is in all forms, which is if you really try to do things really well, you can get to a less good place than if you just let go and let it fly. Especially in creativity.

The National Rifle Association says, 'Guns don't kill people. People do'. But I think the gun helps.

They say the Universe started with a big bang. I hope everybody stood well back.

Some people are widely read. I'm thinly read.

I like my coffee hot and strong. Like I like my women: hot and strong...with a spoon in them.

Cake and tea or death?

Learning that you have stamina is an excellent thing to know. If a project fails, I know I can pick myself up.

I saw something in a program on something in Miami, and they were saying, "We've redecorated this building to how it looked over 50 years ago!" And people were going, "No, surely not, no. No one was alive then."

When I first came out, I thought, I want to walk like a real woman, I don't want to do mincing steps. And there was some girl I saw walking up Holloway Road in Islington who had this long languid walk and I thought, that's what I like, so I incorporated her walk into mine.

Spiders frighten me. In response to the spider alerts for Australia, please can the Australian government remove all spiders from Australia and blow them into outer space.

I love the fact that trying is respected. The American Dream: if you try, if you build it, they will come. I love that. It's honorable.

I don't subscribe to the theory that all politicians are crap. I think the 'cool people' often take that position.

In Britain we have a very powerful tabloid culture with celebrities on the front page crying with their make-up smeared and tears, and it's kind of what you'd expect from someone who likes to dress up that way.

If you're trying to get a bit of attention, you can smash up your hotel room or spend all your time going to openings or doing the gossip column thing. I just decided to do gigs in French, German, Spanish, and in America.

When I was seven, I said, "I want to act." When I was 10, I realized that films exist, and I wanted to be in them. Not a comedian, I wanted to be a dramatic actor. Films just seemed such fun, and like such a great thing to do.

I remember when I was being told about Watergate, and I thought, "Oh, America is not what I think America is." But America is what I think it is. It's just that it's two bits of it, and I don't go with the Republican bit of it. I go more with the Democratic bit.

This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight...one, from...here to there. We'll be cruising at a height of ten feet, going up to twelve and a half feet if we see anything big. And our copilot today is a flask of coffee.

Fox hunting, there's big fox hunting thing, there's arguments in Britain about fox hunting. And they go around. They obviously hunt foxes because the foxes, they attack chickens. And posh people have an alliance with chickens just like in the First World War.

Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both ... different. In spelling.

I am a professional transvestite, so I can run about in heels and not fall over.

I am two lesbians in a man's body.

If you're choking in a restaurant you can just say the magic words, 'Heimlich maneuver,' and all will be well. Trouble is, it's difficult to say 'Heimlich maneuver' when you're choking to death.

I want to live till I die. No more, no less.

I use a Bruce Lee technique: "The way of no way". He had the idea that he would learn everything, so that whoever he had to fight, he could improvise anything. The best way of starting a gig is just to not think of anything - to clear your mind, not in an empty Zen state, but more just to go on and see where you go.

Cause if you're a transvestite, you're actually a male tomboy, that's where the sexuality is. Yeah, it's not drag queen, no; gay men have got that covered. This is male tomboy, and people do get that mixed up, they put transvestite there - no no no no! Little bit of a crowbar separation, thank you! And gay men, I think, would agree. It's male lesbian, that's really where it is, ok? Because... it's true! 'Cause most transvestites fancy girls, fancy women. So that's where it is.

You notice how they always put the fruit and veg at the entrance to the supermarket? You go in thinking 'this is a fresh shop, everything in here is FRESH! I will do well to shop here'. You never go straight to the bit with the toilet paper, loo brushes and such do you? You'd think 'this is a POO shop! Everything in here is themed on POO!

In the UK a lot of people don't like to try. There's a different cultural thing. Here [in USA] if you try and fail, you get up again and start again and keep going. People respect you for it. Even if you keep failing, they respect the tenacity.

Sharks are just evil bastards. I'm quite happy if all the sharks just went, because they eat fish and us. And we need the fish.

And the druids, they were into sex and death in an interesting night-time telly sort of way.

For me to put a look together, if it's going to be a boy look or a girl look or whatever, is quite a tricky thing to do. I'm not doing drag because drag is seen in a certain way and my comedy has got zero to do with what I'm wearing. I could wear an elephant suit and say the same thing.

It's not a bloody piano, it's a clarenARt...you weird talking person.

Drama is a complete meal, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates. It's a slow burn thing. It's got an arc. Comedy is more like coke.

But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana!

How to survive boarding school. Do not express emotion, do not feel emotion, do not have emotion. If someone hits you, hit them back, if someone argues with you, argue back, never give in an inch, never look vulnerable and you will survive.

So in Europe, we had empires. Everyone had them - France and Spain and Britain and Turkey! The Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason. And the Austro-Hungarian Empire, famous for f-k all! Yes, all they did was slowly collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

You can't land on the moon and say, "Ooh, it's all sticky! It's covered in jam!

I've wiped the file? .... I've wiped all the files? .... I've wiped the INTERNET? I don't even have a modem!