As soon as I got successful, the Scottish press started picking on me. It's something they reserve just for me.
— Billy Connolly
Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don't sit in the dark hiding. It's easy to hide and shout and waste people's time.
I loathe hecklers. I haven't got a good syllable to say. When you come out of the club circuit and into the concert hall, they should be gone. There's an element of manners that should tell you that the ticket is dear and it's a different venue.
I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.
I started to draw desert islands. They were just rough, shapes in the middle of the page. Then I began drawing shapes within those shapes and I was amazed how quickly the islands got better. It took off from there.
My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.
I don't know why I should have to learn Algebra... I'm never likely to go there.
My parents used to take me to the pet department and tell me it was a zoo.
The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.
I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place.
I don't believe in angels and I have trouble with the whole God thing. I don't want to say I don't believe in God, but I don't think I do. But I believe in people who do.
Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.
I've always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can't tell to an audience. There's a fine line you have to tread because you don't know who is out there in the auditorium. A lot of people are too easily offended.
Behind the proscenium arch, you can't always hear what people in the audience are saying.
Don't tell me how to do my job. I don't come to your workplace and tell you how to sweep up.
I like Dali and Magritte. I also like the Scottish artist John Byrne, another surrealist.
I don't believe in angels, no. But I do have a wee parking angel. It's on my dashboard and you wind it up. The wings flap and it's supposed to give you a parking space. It's worked so far.
I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.
Fame is being asked to sign your autograph on the back of a cigarette packet.
If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican first name?
It seems to me that Islam and Christianity and Judaism all have the same god, and he's telling them all different things.
I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days.
The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll look exactly the same afterwards.
I don't aim to offend.
Once you become successful, people know where you live, the type of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, and so it would be patronising to go and talk like a welder. Welding's a mystery to me now. You can't go back, your life changes every day.
Did your mother never tell you not to drink on an empty head?
I still do my comedy and my performance stuff and my acting so it's not all-consuming. But I do find myself drawing more and more these days.
I have been made redundant before and it is a terrible blow; redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless.
I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.
Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosey... Doesn't try it on.
There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.
I'm a citizen of the world. I like it that way. The world's a wonderful. I just think that some people are pretty badly represented. But when you speak to the people themselves they're delightful. They all want so little.
I don't have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I've done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that's mostly what I'm offered.
Ally MacLeod thinks that tactics are a new kind of mint.
