I think you can make fun of anything except things people can't help. They can't help their race or their sex or their age, so you ridicule their pretension or their ego instead. You can ridicule ideas - ideas don't have feelings. You can ridicule an idea that someone holds without hurting them.
Ricky Gervais
Science is constantly proved all the time. If we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and destroyed it, in a thousand years' time, that wouldn't come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they'd all be back because all the same tests would be the same result.
Ricky Gervais
People confuse the subject of the joke with the target of the joke, and they're very rarely the same.
Ricky Gervais
I'm a fan of the kind of political correctness that is about not promoting prejudice. But some people in America are offended by equality because when you've had privilege for so long, equality feels like oppression.
Ricky Gervais
With the Internet era and social media and politics being so out there with the lies, now you've got people denying things they're on camera doing, and then you've got people not really caring about the truth. You've got people supporting people who've done horrific things, but just don't want the other side to get any satisfaction.
Ricky Gervais
Free speech is one of the most important things to me, but I think it gets confusing when it comes to offense. Because for one, just because you have the right to say anything, it doesn't mean you have to.
Ricky Gervais
I don't care whether people say, ''The Office' is rubbish, 'Extras' is worse, 'Flanimals' is a waste of time. He's not funny; he never has been. I hate him.' I don't mind that at all. In fact, not only do I expect it, I celebrate it, because I think the haters are really important.
Ricky Gervais
Honor is a gift a man gives himself. You can be as good as anyone that ever lived. If you can read, you can learn everything that anyone ever learned. But you've got to want it.
Ricky Gervais
I don't like it when I see a racist comedian go up and say, 'What are we gonna do about all these immigrants?' and they get a round the applause. I think, 'Well that's not a joke. That's just your biased opinion.'
Ricky Gervais
My dad was a laborer. And he used to get up at 5:30 every morning. He worked for 50 years of his life, in all weathers for, by showbiz standards, petty cash. I remind myself of that when I feel a little bit spoiled or hard done by.
Ricky Gervais
You should make something. You should bring something into the world that wasn't in the world before. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's a table or a film or gardening-everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, 'I did that.'
Ricky Gervais
There's no difference between fame and infamy now. There's a new school of professional famous people that don't do anything. They don't create anything.
Ricky Gervais
I didn't know I was poor, growing up, because everyone was in the same boat. I couldn't have bikes. It never really bothered me, but I could have any book. I loved school; I loved learning. Yeah, I never cared for possessions. I still don't, really.
Ricky Gervais
Pol Pot - he rounded up anybody he thought was intellectual and had them executed. And how he told someone was intellectual or not was whether they wore glasses. If they're that clever, take them off when they see him coming!
Ricky Gervais
Karl Pilkington has the roundest head, I think, in the world. It's not technically a deformity, but I've never seen anything quite that spherical.
Ricky Gervais
If you spend your days doing what you love, it is impossible to fail. So I go about my days trying to bring something into the world that wasn't in the world before. And then everyone gets furious about it. And then I sit back and say, 'I did that!'
Ricky Gervais
I haven't had my teeth fixed, I haven't had a hair transplant. I haven't had a skin peel, tummy tuck. I've done literally nothing.
Ricky Gervais
I don't mind what people say about me as long as it's an opinion or the truth. If someone says, 'He's the worst comedian in the world,' that's fine. If someone says, 'His face makes me want to punch the TV,' that's fine. But if they say, 'Oh, and I know for a fact he hunts squirrels,' I go: no, no, no... that's a lie.
Ricky Gervais
A couple of people I knew went to university apart from me, but all the way through I was the smartest kid in the school. That's luck, but I was proud of it. And I was also proud of doing well without trying. As you get older, and it took me a long time to realise it, that's a disgusting attitude, revolting.
Ricky Gervais
With Netflix, I browse; I watch documentaries about things I'd never dream of, but I think, 'I might as well.'
Ricky Gervais
I wanted to be clever, but being funny came first. That's how you know someone is clever. They don't come out and tell you pi to 13 places - they tell you a joke.
Ricky Gervais
There's nothing wrong with being respected by your peers. There's nothing wrong with trying to do your best. There's nothing wrong with success. There's not even anything wrong with trying to get a raise. There's nothing wrong with that.
Ricky Gervais
Everything I do is somehow rooted in humanity. It's always about people; it's always about ego. It's always about desperation. It's quite existential. You know, 'Am I leading a good life?' That might be because I'm an atheist, and I think this is all we've got, so you better be nice. And have fun.
Ricky Gervais
I'm a scientist at heart, so I know how important the truth is. However inconvenient, however unattractive, however embarrassing, however shocking, the truth is the truth, and wanting it not to be true doesn't change things.
Ricky Gervais
You can be watching the greatest film in the world, and if you hear your neighbor getting into a fight, you're at the window.
Ricky Gervais
I don't do karaoke. I don't dance, even at weddings. I'm the grumpy one sitting down drinking wine.
Ricky Gervais
Fame is an upshot of what I do. If you're a successful comedian or actor, then you're a famous one. But it's not the driving force. It's a by-product.
Ricky Gervais
There are no Hollywood stars speaking out for the elderly. They're forgotten, bewildered, and I don't think it's because people are cruel or don't care. It's because you don't want to think about your own mortality. I think people don't talk about it enough.
Ricky Gervais
I think Dustin Hoffman has been in at least three of my favorite movies of all time with things like 'Tootsie,' 'Marathon Man.' Getting a bit more arthouse and darker, 'The Graduate' - incredible, barrier-breaking movie, 'The Graduate.'
Ricky Gervais
Luckily, even when people are shouting lies, the truth is undamaged. Science doesn't matter what you believe.
Ricky Gervais
I was very protective of my privacy. I didn't want people to write bad things about me that weren't true, because that's just not fair. Fifty percent of everything written about me is wrong.
Ricky Gervais
When I was about to be famous, I feared it on a few levels. I feared it because I didn't want people to lump me in with those people who'd do anything to be famous. I didn't like the word 'celebrity.' I feared intrusion, you know? Make me famous, and suddenly you can go through my trash bins.
Ricky Gervais
My career, I look at it in a Darwinian framework. I'm going to do exactly what I want, and I'm going to survive, or I'm not. I'm not going to pander. I'm not going to change things. I'm not going to do focus groups. I'll live and die by the sword. I don't care. Because I couldn't live with myself.
Ricky Gervais
I'd never tried as hard with anything as I did with 'The Office,' and it was one of the things I'm proud of. I wasn't trying to be famous or a comedian, but this opportunity came along when I was 38 or 39. It came late, and I couldn't have been prouder of it.
Ricky Gervais
How many times have we seen reality celebrities fall from grace - often through no fault of their own - and then go on a show like 'Celebrity Big Brother' and say, 'I want to show the public a different side of me.' And I'm screaming at the telly going, 'This is not therapy. This is voyeurism!'
Ricky Gervais
Sometimes being old is used as an insult, which is bizarre because, if you're lucky, that's literally going to happen to you. It's a strange thing to gloat about: being born recently.
Ricky Gervais
When I go to work, I don't want to make depressing, gritty, urban stories that are depressing to watch. I want to give people something to enjoy. When people think I'm a control freak and an ogre - which I am - it's only because I want my work to be accessible and Everyman, in a way.
Ricky Gervais
