When you come to my show, I want it to feel like opera, like a theatre.

Is there a sharper commentary on American culture and the world than The Simpsons?

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

I don’t have a vast longing for the stage.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

The tradition of the South is not urban… I think we are a region of storytellers, naturally, just from our tribal instincts. We did not have the pleasures of the theater or the dance, motion pictures when they came along. We simply entertain each other by talking.

Those movies sure got me into a rut.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

People don’t want drama 365 days a year. I’m a sense of relief; it’s my job to take your mind off what’s bad for that brief second you’re in the room with me, regardless of shape, race, colour or anything. It brings people together, and it makes me feel good about what I’m doing.

Proper sleep has helped me get to where I am today as an athlete, and it is something that I continue to rely on every day.

And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it’s not you going through it.

I get really motivated when I put on the India jersey. It is a responsibility, so I want to perform in the best way I can.

If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

When you are in good form, you keep hitting the target. You may have the best match but you may still not have the goals. But scoring is most important and it feels so good that I have been knocking them in. It really boosts the morale.

The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.

For more than a decade, I led an organization that put on an elaborate Christmas program each December. It was a big production, with over 250 people participating in more than 20 performances. By the end of the season, everyone who participated was exhausted.

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

I think television has had a vast, unbelievable impact on us.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

Bad performances can happen and are not that serious – even with new players. You can’t, say, sell him, get a new one.

I always said that I wouldn’t use a teleprompter, and if I start to sing real flat, I’ll hang it up.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.

If you watch any good player, they’re using different parts of their body and working with instruments that respond to those movements. They’re moving in many dimensions at once.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

I sent out a tweet, ‚Dancing with the Stars‘ should stop the jibber jabber. They shouldn’t make the departure of a dancer so tear jerky because nobody’s going to war.

Chris Rock does the political thing really well, but that never worked for me.

I’m all about surprises. If you watch a horror movie, and it’s called ‚Kiss Land,‘ it’s probably going to be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

My philosophy is, it’s always very rewarding when you can make an audience laugh. I don’t mind making fun of myself. I like self-deprecating comedy. But I’d like you to laugh with me occasionally, too.

As long as I stay in training and play well, I don’t see what objection there can be to what I do off the field.

I work hard for the audience. It’s entertainment. I don’t need validation.

I like a drama.

I can remember earning £5,000 a game playing for Hibs at the end of the Seventies. They let me commute from London, train on the Friday and play on Saturday. That lasted until my friends at the Inland Revenue decided to take two-thirds. That wasn’t very entertaining for me.

What a blast it is to be here with Michael Moore.

Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.

The secret to humor is surprise.

I love eating chocolate cake and ice cream after a show. I almost justify it in my mind as, ‚You were a good boy onstage and you did your show, so now you can have some cake and ice cream.‘

We don’t want people to leave the stadium until the game finishes.

I’d love to go into WWE and have a real knock and see what’s what.

A chorus is not easy.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

I’m really happy and had such an amazing time performing at Super Bowl – wish I could relive it all over again.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

Kids end up seeing my movies anyway but some of the mothers get mad at me so I figured I’d make one that I can’t get yelled at for.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

I never wanted to perform and never proclaimed myself to be a performer.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

I love playing under pressure. In fact, if there’s no pressure, then I’m not in the perfect zone.

One of the reasons I connect to the Super Bowl is that I approach my shows like an athlete.

I was performing in New York and my friends started to call me Gaga, they said I was very theatrical and they said, ‚You’re Gaga‘.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.