Top 57 Quotes & Sayings by Ronnie Corbett
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish comedian Ronnie Corbett.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
My first pet at home in Edinburgh was a dog my dad had called Glen. He was a small sheepdog and went with my dad every day to work as manager of a cooking centre, which made the children's lunches for schools.
I've been lucky in that I've always loved my job.
I don't want to push barriers myself. You go to see Joan Rivers to see barriers being pushed. You watch 'Little Britain' to see barriers being pushed.
How long does it take to make 'They Think It's All Over?' It's just laughing at each other and thinking, 'Aren't we clever?'
I have been trapped in some posh toilets, including those in Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, and at Victor Spinetti's memorial at St. Paul's Covent Garden, I got locked in the loo.
I like to do enough work to keep myself sharp and relevant without trying to be trendy.
We did Donald McGill, seaside-postcard stuff - middle of the road.
It's difficult to be clean and clever at the same time, but a lot of our stuff was.
Our comedy was light-hearted amusement that seemingly tripped naturally off the tongue. That's why I don't think it will date.
People who want to do stand-up from the start - I mean that's an extremely self-centred thing to want, isn't it?
In the old days, if you topped the bill one evening, you'd do 22 minutes maximum, and if you overstepped and did 27 one night, you'd get a knock on the door telling you it wasn't acceptable.
I look forward to doing everything, whether appearing on TV or walking the dog.
I think people feel starved of nice, glamorous entertainment. They want to see costumes and gaiety and a singer; old-fashioned entertainment - it won't die easily.
I've had a very happy life, and although I have had tragedy, I've never suffered from any darkness.
I am happy most of the time.
I'm always nervous. A classy comedian is full of self-doubt disguised with an air of false confidence. If there isn't self-doubt, you seem aggressive.
I just keep jogging along, and people seem to like me. And for that I am very grateful.
I suppose to the outside world I do seem slightly obsessed. But I once had a balance problem with my inner ear, and the fear loitered. Yet I have found that golf is like a yoga procedure for me: it's had wonderful, sedative, remedial qualities for my day-to-day life.
A man can add to his sexuality by being funny, whereas a woman can diminish hers. I don't know why that's the case: it's completely unfair.
David Frost plucked me from the nightclubs.
I watch the wonderful Dara O'Briain refereeing 'Mock the Week,' where they all compete with each other. I wouldn't be on that. It frightens the life out of me.
I have had the most spoiled golfing life.
It is nice to be appreciated by the youngsters.
The really funny moments you notice throughout your life are very seldom generated by one person telling a joke.
Comedy taste changes. It only changes slightly, but there's always a different angle, a different attitude.
The funny thing about the golf swing is that you try to alter it and end up with the same faults as you've had all your life.
We had a certain kind of material that was not dangerously esoteric.
Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
All those I admired as a young performer had a calmness to their comedy.
We had brilliant writers on our shows, and I do think that 'The Two Ronnies' has stood the test of time. It was certainly the greatest fun to do.
My father instilled attention to detail and a sense of duty and responsibility.
I actually found it very moving how destructive depression is. I was really saddened by this burden people have to handle.
We go out of fashion but can also come back into fashion. So you've just got to hang around long enough until you are back in style.
We'd never do anything tasteless. There's enough to make fun of without offending.
You get fed up watching shows with not much care and love, reality programmes where they put people in a house for a fortnight and film them doing everything, or where participants arrive after lunch and do the programme at six.
As you get older, you worry about your memory.
Dad was a baker, and Mum was tied up with church and the social club.
I love radio and have done a little bit for years - since 'Workers' Playtime' in the 1950s. It's also a good springboard for comedians.
Doing things like 'Extras' and 'Little Britain' keeps me in with the youngsters.
I have not survived 50 years in showbusiness by being Mr. Nice. If you are weak, this business eats you up.
What is so good about 'Gavin and Stacey' is that it is very real, Welsh, and well written.
If I change car, I change car. I don't get very fond of things.
If I wear too much tartan, I tend to look like a Thermos flask.
It is all down to 'The Two Ronnies.' Those years with Ronnie Barker were the spine of my career.
When I'm stopped in the street, people want to talk about 'The Two Ronnies' and the sketches we did.
I have been in the business for 62 years. It's a match made in heaven.
It is possible to have good manners and be funny at the same time. Ronnie Barker and I proved that.
Golf is the most fascinating game, but other people's game is the most boring thing.
Part of my style was getting into a muddle. Audiences think that's part of the act. Sometimes it might be - but you have to guess which bits.
There was a story saying I didn't like contemporary comedians, but it's completely untrue - a lot of them are very dear friends of mine.
There are many comics around who don't really have a feel for comedy. They can say outrageous things, have clever thoughts, and deliver some funny angles. But they are not genuinely funny.
I used to have a theory in my mind that if no serious move had happened before I was 38 - not 40, oddly - then I would move into management or something. Fortunately, I was offered 'The Frost Report' when I was 37, so that was a close thing, too.
We knew what mums, dads, and children would understand and enjoy without resentment. I don't see the requirement to upset people. You're there to entertain and please.
A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston Pass. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for 16 hardened criminals.
It is true that whisky improves with age. The older I get, the more I like it.
I certainly treasure the memory and indeed the picture, which still hangs in my house in Scotland, of Ronnie Barker and I with the Choir when we came to Wales to shoot our Welsh choir section of the "Two Ronnies" programme. You are very close to my heart.
I wasn't a very athletic boy. I was once lapped in the long jump
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