Steve Coogan Thinking Quotations

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.

I don't think I'm kind of universally known. I think in the indie world I'm probably better known than in some mainstream Hollywood terms.

When I see friends from school I think they've all grown old and I've stayed the same.

I don't think there's anything outside what comedy can address.

Big comedy is good, I like things that are big, but good comedy has to be truthful I think and has to reflect some sort of reality.

I think we all have a slightly gay gene inside us, don't we? It might be 0.00001 per cent as mine is, or one per cent as yours is.

The irony is, of course, that many of the values that I was raised with, that I think are very important, that I hold dear, are the result of a religious faith.

Even if I screw up in my personal life, as long as I'm not destroying myself, I just think, "Okay, I screwed up." I'm not Mother Theresa.

When you see a crowd of people jumping up and down at a pop concert, all gloriously in the moment, I don't think you'll ever see a comedian there. They'll all be standing at the sides, looking at how it all fits together.

I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view.

I'm really encouraged by Pope Francis, because I think his attitude is totally laudable.

To me, I like and understand ritual and I think it is important. Things that we do that give us comfort are important. Like Christmas, I like to go into a church and hear the carols sung. There's a comfort of actually going inside of a church, I find them serene. They're unchanging.

I've met people who've dismissed me, and then they find out that they like my work, and suddenly their attitude changes toward me. And I think that's very funny and very human. But it's also very unattractive.

I always think that, even when people behave badly, if you like something deep inside them, then there is a tiny bit of nobility - they wish they could be good.

I think you need to have the guts to not use comedy. Often, the people that work in comedy use a joke to avoid contemplation.

What terrifies me is that I might somehow endorse that view so people think they don't have to read books anymore.

I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.

I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It's more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.

The important thing is not to be defined by what others think of you.

I am not a politician going around bragging about family values or putting myself on some ridiculous virtuous pedestal. I write comedy. And I am an actor. I am not going to solve the nation's problems. I don't actually spend my life in the way the tabloids like to think I do. I actually spend 95 percent of it writing comedy. Sober. Well, nearly sober anyway.

I think if you try to look for something to show off as an actor, vanity can get the better of you.

I'm not like a politician that goes around talking about family values. And I can't get fired from being a funny person because I did something that most people are disapproving of. I think people are just obsessed with this morality that people perceive as being the right and wrong way of doing stuff.

When Americans talks about Europeans, they are thinking Britain and the rest of Europe. When we [ Britains] talk about Europeans, we talk about everywhere else.

Look at all those American preachers who got caught with their pants down. They say one thing and they are doing another. I try to be more honest about it, both in my thinking and my behavior.