Well, certainly I think American television is - that's proper TV.
— Graham Norton
I loved Lucille Ball growing up.
You don't want to be hard to look at. Plain very good, hard to look at bad. The plain shall inherit the earth; time is our friend.
Because society places a value on masculinity, gay men aspire to it. If you go to a gay club and the doorman says, 'You do realise this is a gay club, don't you lads?' you get all excited because you think, 'Wow, he thought I was straight!'
You don't want money to make you a social freak where you can only hang out with rich people.
It's amazing how I can just ramble on for hours, isn't it? And so unentertaining or uninteresting. But I can ramble on for hours. It's a sort of terrible gift, isn't it?
I've heard other gay people say when they were growing up they felt 'foreign.' Growing up, I was able to label these feelings as: 'I'm a Protestant.' It wasn't until I left, I thought: 'Oh, those weren't Protestant feelings.'
Tolerance is forced on people in London.
The BBC is a victim of its own independence.
I've so exceeded what I ever wanted to do.
My life could have been so grim... really, really grim.
I'm actually quite self-sufficient, so it might look as if there isn't room for anyone in my life. That isn't entirely the case.
If you'd told the young Graham Norton that I'd one day have this amount of money, I'd have assumed it would have come from a lottery win.
Occasionally the state of the planet can knock me off my perky perch.
A comedian's a comedian. They're a very kind of cynical bunch. I guess that's why I like them.
The people I want are very famous and very rich, and all I can offer them is a bit of exposure on TV and a bit of cash, so it's a miracle we get any guests at all. But we have been very lucky.
Basically, I'm a really bad interviewer. I love meeting celebrities, but then I get a bit bored. Once you meet them you thing, 'really, what an ordinary person'.
Those years between drama school and getting onto the stand-up circuit were pretty lean.
All my interesting stories are from before I was on television. Nothing interesting has happened to me since then. Maybe it's because the most interesting thing in my life is the show and that's on telly.
An awful lot of female celebrities are very beautiful whereas a lot of male celebrities are not so hot.
I am camp. Lots of gay men can't cope with their campness. They are in denial about it.
It's lovely to get one successful show - the chances of finding a second one are not so hot.
Some people think they're depressed and they go to the doctor and want pills. And you just think: 'You hate where you live, you've lost your job, your boyfriend has dumped you, could all this be why you're depressed?'
Do I have more depth than I'm given credit for? No!
The higher your profile becomes, the more aware you are that people out there might hate you.
The BBC will always be attacked by whoever is in government. It is that George Bush thing of 'If you're not with us you are against us.'
I'd like to retire at 50 but I don't want to sell papers in the middle of London on a Zimmer.
I have nothing to say about my childhood. It was a perfectly pleasant upbringing - it's not like it was unhappy or anything.
I always say I'd rather be miserable by myself than unhappy in a relationship.
Forty freaked me out. I didn't see it coming. My life was in a state of chaos - I was moving jobs and moving house - and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
I am very quick to judge.
I think the word is adult!
My mobile rang around lunchtime one day, and it was George Michael. He wanted to come in on Friday. We were like, 'okay, if that's what you want'. And he was a very good guest. That's a real exception to the rule.
I was a failed actor but I still wanted to show off, so I ended up doing live comedy.
My parents grew up working class, but in that way that working class families do, they spent a fortune on education to better me.
One of the great things about being gay and out is that the papers couldn't care less about your love life.
I do get pleasure from very inconsequential things, like shopping for clothes.
Where I get bored is when I show up for a shoot and they want me to wear a feather boa. Too obvious a thing for a poof on the telly to do.
I don't think you should have to try to be nice, I think most people are nice. I think being cheerful and nice is just a politeness.
I don't think anyone wants to be gay.
It sounds deeply shallow, but for brief spells every member of the public can be fascinating.
Straight men just can't imagine the bliss of being in a relationship with someone who finds farting as funny as they do.
I am really bad at actually interviewing people.
I'm often dating people, but I don't say it because you sort of know it won't last long.
If it was possible for me to adopt, I probably would, but no one's going to let me adopt.
All these people I interview are worth ten times what I'm worth.
I spent a long time working in restaurants and making no money. It was very character-building, but I think it could have been built in a shorter time.
Britain's such a twisted, weird little place.
My ambition was to stop waiting tables. That was how I measured success: finally, I was able to stop waiting tables, and I was able to pay the rent, and that was by being a stand-up comic. Not a very good stand-up comic, but good enough to make a living.
The only people who are desperate to go on the show are people we're desperate not to have on the show.
