Give me the new thing and give it to me now. I don’t want that old thing – I’ve seen it, heard it, bought it, slept with it, loved it, but now I’m bored with the old thing and I’m gagging for the new stuff. – Arthur Smith
The history of the relationship between comedy and swimming is short indeed. Of course it is always funny when someone falls into water, but that’s about it. – Arthur Smith
Don Quixote’s ‘Delusions’ is an excellent read – far better than my own forthcoming travel book, ‘Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.’ – Arthur Smith
The outfits come and go but there is a constant that I like about the catwalk model: the snotty expression. – Arthur Smith
Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world. – Arthur Smith
Obviously I am not bothered about men’s fashion – is anyone, apart from Jonathan Ross? – Arthur Smith
It is more interesting to be compared to someone famous, because it lets you gauge what perceptions people have about your appearance. – Arthur Smith
Only the pun remains. The pun, beloved of Shakespeare, children and tabloid headline-writers, is normally eschewed in the modern, sophisticated circles in which I move. – Arthur Smith
Because comedy is cheap to put on: if you’ve got a play or an opera, there’s a whole load of people and a set, but comedy is just one man or woman. And because TV has learned to love comics – there’s so many more around now than when I started out. – Arthur Smith
The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I’ve often found myself following in their footsteps – although perhaps not all of their footsteps since a typical walk for Samuel T. Coleridge might last two days and cover 145km. – Arthur Smith
The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper – perhaps Welsh rarebit – and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up. – Arthur Smith
I see my large nose, like half an avocado. I broke it falling downstairs when I was six, and it now resembles a large blob of play-dough. – Arthur Smith
Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended. – Arthur Smith
It’s the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates. – Arthur Smith
The Bible has no doubt had much influence in its time, but it provides very few laughs. None, in fact. – Arthur Smith
Travel books are, by and large, boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact, fiction and autobiography. – Arthur Smith
My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can’t skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what’s going on. – Arthur Smith
Sky and clouds and trees and little figures relaxing in the perfect rural rhythm of their surroundings: these are the staples of a Gainsborough landscape. – Arthur Smith
Global warming, the ongoing destruction of the planet, Third World debt, the uselessness of the railways, the takeover by the corporations, the scary George Bush person: all these things are important and should be animating me into outrage. Yet somehow they do not. – Arthur Smith
Occasionally I find a travel book that is both illuminating and entertaining, where vivid writing and research replace self-indulgence and sloppy prose. – Arthur Smith
A savage review is much more entertaining for the reader than an admiring one; the little misanthrope in each of us relishes the rubbishing of someone else. – Arthur Smith
The book may be garbage, but if it weighs in at a kilo or more, I stand before its author in awe. – Arthur Smith
I read ‘Crime and Punishment’ years ago and don’t recall the details of it, but I do retain a strong sense of the creeping paranoia and panic. – Arthur Smith
It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket. – Arthur Smith
It’s worth turning up to an awards gig if you know you’ve won one but, since you never do know, it’s not worth it. – Arthur Smith