Stephen Merchant Quotes By Topic

Please cite sources and references when adding to this page. Any additions that do not cite a source will be deleted.

What are you looking at?

This a collection of opinions and quotes from Stephen Merchant listed by topic
Click here to see Stephen Merchant Quotes By Date

On Time Machines

Stephen: I'd go back to, to religious times. I'd go back to, to the birth of Jesus. See what was going on.
Karl: Really?
Stephen: Yeah...see how the frankincense and myrrh went down.
- BBC Radio Two 24 December 2005

On Acting

"I can speak in this voice, I can look like this, and that's about it. I can't learn lines for love nor money. I have to have them pasted up around the set, that's why I'm largely sat down, so I can have it in a drawer or on the computer screen."
-This Morning 11 December 2006

On Gays

"I think if you sex with another bloke, you're generally considered gay."
-The Ricky Gervais Show Video Podcast #5

On Karl Pilkington

"I remember the days when Karl didn't even want to be on the air, I remember the days when he was told by the establishment that he wasn't allowed to talk on the air, and now, it's like, as far as he's concerned, he's a third member of the team!"
-Xfm 01 December 2001

"Unless you've heard him, you can never really appreciate .. but he's like a real life Homer Simpson. The things he comes out with are extraordinary."
-This Morning 11 December 2006

“It's like having a chimp in the room.”
-Xfm 15 February 2003

“Talking of monkeys working the sound desk…”
-Xfm 18 June 2005

On Listeners

“You ask ‘em for, you know, I don’t know, great quotes or something from the great philosophers – nothing! You ask ‘em where to buy meths cheap – straight on the phone!”
-Xfm 06 April 2002

“It's email only. We don't want to speak to these freaks.”
-Xfm 26 April 2003

“People seem to at long last have tuned in to your wavelength, Karl. Which is, of course, 104.9.”
-Xfm 31 May 2003

“If you're morally objectionable, why not email [email protected].”
-Xfm 29 November 2003

“If you can't live without Lord of the Rings, screw you. I don't want you as a listener.”
-Xfm 03 January 2004

On His Manhood

"For a tall man, I feel like I have been a little bit short-changed."
-Podcast Series 1, Episode Two

On Midgets

"With all due respect to any midgets listening.. they must be fairly easy to round up."
-Podcast Series 1, Episode Two

On Money

"If you invite a girl out to dinner, I don't see why she should expect a pudding."
-1 Leicester Square with Russell Brand 25 September 2006

"People say it's stinginess, Gervais would say it's stinginess. I don't agree. I'm my father's son, he's a man who's cautious with money. I remember my sister said to him once 'Why do I only get 20p by the tooth fairy, whereas all my friends got a quid?' and he said something like 'Because all the other tooth fairies have wives that work.'"
-Jonathan Ross BBC Radio 2 24 March 2007

On Music

"To me, you know what new music is? It's music you've not heard before."
-The Steve Show 14 January 2007

"I never enjoy any record where I think I, or a 4-year old could have made it."
-Xfm 26 January 2002

On Ricky Gervais

"You (Ricky) are the most annoying man ever, in the history of all things; and I've met a lot of people in life who I like to think... even everyone..."
-Xfm 09 February 2002

"You are so annoying. Have you been with him trying to have lunch with Ricky? It's the hardest thing. You wander around for hours .. he has a tolerance level ... it's extraordinary. He is irritated by a car honking it's horn in the street... He gets annoyed by police sirens, by rain, wind, birds in the air, other people in the street, children particularly .. This is the thing! You are most irritating man I've ever met, without a shadow of a doubt."
-Xfm 09 February 2002

"What was so bizarre was that, having never acted, the whole character of David Brent just came out, fully formed. It was extraordinary. I'd never seen anything like it."
-This Morning 11 December 2006

"Spending any length of time with you is one of the most unbearable things I've had to do... it's like .. hell... You are the sort of man who gets bored drinking a glass of water, because it's not flavourful enough...That's one of the reasons I hate you."
-Xfm 07 September 2002

"I do enjoy working with him enormously, he is such an amazing sounding board as well for any ideas, and you have a little idea of your own but he is just able to spin it on to a whole other dimension, and that's the thing I enjoy the most."
-Jonathan Ross BBC Radio 2, 24 March 2007

"The thing ultimately that I really enjoy is sitting in a room with Ricky and coming up with ideas and making each other laugh, and that is a sort of thrill, and so, hopefully, long may it continue."
-Simon Mayo, 26 March 2007

"Ricky gives me great confidence. He doesn't seem to have the qualms that I have. He's more anxious that he's perceived as a nice man, which he is."
-GQ October 2007

“Have you got a single pair of trousers that aren't elasticated at the waist?”
-Xfm 15 December 2001

“But what I love though Rick is the idea of you, jumping into icy water to save someone, giving them a lung; I can guarantee if someone was lying on the floor screaming, they needed your help, you'd affect a foreign accent and go 'I no understand' and run off.”
-Xfm 27 April 2002

“How many times have you been to a doctor's clinic, and sat in the waiting room, right, Karl, how many times have you been there with a friend of yours? Twice I've been with Ricky.”
-Xfm 27 April 2002

“Well, someone just thought you were fat, with a beard. Which is true.”
-Xfm 22 November 2003

“I actually got to the point now where I refuse to eat out with Ricky. It sucks the life out of me. I can't enjoy the experience. You whinge, you complain, you look at Jane like a little boy, like ‘Oh Mum, why've you brought me here?’"
-Xfm 11 June 2005

“Basically Ricky is wearing .. he's made so little effort, the only way he could have made less effort was if he wasn't wearing any clothes. If he was just wearing his underpants, that he slept in.”
-Xfm 02 July 2005

On Women

"I had to say 'You're all my hos, but I can't choose between you. So I'm taking Karl.’"
-Xfm 20 April 2002

"I thought it was worth getting some condoms, because ... you know ... it's Christmas party season, and you never know when you're gonna run out of balloons."
-The Podfather Part 2 - Thanksgiving

"It's confidence ... the thing that always held me back was the fear of an embarrassing situation."
-GQ October 2007

“Come on, Rick! If Marx and Engels is not gonna get a woman sweaty down below, then nothing is. Then my name is not Steve Merchant.”
-Xfm 30 March 2002