Best 148 quotes of Eddie Izzard on MyQuotes

If you're choking in a restaurant you can just say the magic words, 'Heimlich maneuver,' and all will be well. Trouble is, it's difficult to say 'Heimlich maneuver' when you're choking to death.

If you're trying to get a bit of attention, you can smash up your hotel room or spend all your time going to openings or doing the gossip column thing. I just decided to do gigs in French, German, Spanish, and in America.

If you think about determination, if people have a heart and are determined, they can get to that place. But there are a lot of negative people who were enormously determined. All the Nazis were determined. They wanted to murder everyone. Everyone with a bad heart, who doesn't care about people, I wish they hadn't started.

If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid.

I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.

I just believe in the goodwill of people, the power of people to do something positive.

I just play to progressive audiences. You know, if they're watching Discovery Channel, History Channel, that kind of thing, "Monty Python" have already laid the groundwork. They're known around the world. People like that kind of surrealist, left-field humor, and that's what I do. And "Saturday Night Live," a lot of American humor. "The Simpsons," above all, the weird, left-field humor, which I love. And sardonic. So that's all I'm doing. I find that audience, and they're in every developed country around the world.

I like my coffee hot and strong. Like I like my women: hot and strong...with a spoon in them.

I like my coffee like I like my women. In a plastic cup.

I love the fact that trying is respected. The American Dream: if you try, if you build it, they will come. I love that. It's honorable.

I'm an Action Transvestite.

I'm an action transvestite really, so it's running, jumping, climbing trees putting on make-up when you're up there!

I mean, sometimes... a comedian becomes an actor, and they just don't deliver, because the bottom line of comedy is to be funny, and the bottom line of acting is to be truthful, and they get that mixed up sometimes, or don't even notice that that's the thing.

I'm into humanity. I don't believe in God, but I believe in human beings.

I'm quite good at taking in information so I voraciously inhale Wikipedia - which may have some things wrong in it, but I think is generally more information than we had before. Last tour we didn't have Wikipedia. And then Discovery Channel and History Channel. I can take it in and retain what I think are the most important facts.

I'm working on a speed boat at the moment. Much more exciting. It'll really kick ass, give great photographs for the people in Bible.

In Britain we have a very powerful tabloid culture with celebrities on the front page crying with their make-up smeared and tears, and it's kind of what you'd expect from someone who likes to dress up that way.

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

In the UK a lot of people don't like to try. There's a different cultural thing. Here [in USA] if you try and fail, you get up again and start again and keep going. People respect you for it. Even if you keep failing, they respect the tenacity.

I remember when I was being told about Watergate, and I thought, "Oh, America is not what I think America is." But America is what I think it is. It's just that it's two bits of it, and I don't go with the Republican bit of it. I go more with the Democratic bit.

I saw something in a program on something in Miami, and they were saying, "We've redecorated this building to how it looked over 50 years ago!" And people were going, "No, surely not, no. No one was alive then.

I think I'm actually a mainstream, popcorn-eating kid. I've always been that, so I'd sit there watching action movies and American moves before I watch other movies quite often because I am that kid. But I've pushed into the more alternative area because that's where it gets really interesting creatively.

I try to just talk about human stories and what I think about religion or teapots or whatever.

I try to keep performing as much as possible - I just like to. I used to take huge gaps off between gigs, now I just like to do stand-up gigs as much as I can.

It's a historical thing, up to the 19th century the English hated the French. Then in the 20th century the English started to hate the Germans - as we began to move alphabetically through the map of the world. Now, the year 2000, we are fine with the Germans... but the Hungarians are pissing us off.

It's my manifest destiny to wear a skirt in all countries.

It's not a bloody piano, it's a clarenARt...you weird talking person.

I use a Bruce Lee technique: "The way of no way". He had the idea that he would learn everything, so that whoever he had to fight, he could improvise anything. The best way of starting a gig is just to not think of anything - to clear your mind, not in an empty Zen state, but more just to go on and see where you go.

I've done a bit of Latin in my time...but I can control it.

"I've done your dog. It's got nine eyes down the side, I made his head all square, 15 legs. What do you think of that?" "Fido looks a bit weird.

I've wiped the file? .... I've wiped all the files? .... I've wiped the INTERNET? I don't even have a modem!

I wanted to be less well-known in comedy.

I want to be a taxidermist! I wanna fill animals with sand. I wanna get more sand into an animal than anybody has ever bloody got in one. I wanna fill a rat with the entire Gobi Desert, so it’s really quite tight.

I wear whatever I want whenever I want. I don't call it drag; I don't even call it cross-dressing. It's just wearing a dress.

Learning that you have stamina is an excellent thing to know. If a project fails, I know I can pick myself up.

Little red cookbook! Little red cookbook!

MAC gave me 55 lipsticks to test. These are the same lipsticks I got caught stealing by the police when I was 15. How ironic.

Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh ... well, until you killed them all, I suppose.

Most transvestites fancy girls.

My dad said, "As long as you're happy." I used to think it was kind of a very simple idea or philosophy because he wasn't religious. But you've got to try and be happy. And if you're not happy, you can't help anyone else. So obviously, some crazy people could go to places, but I just think you need to be content within yourself, so that's the thing.

My Gran said put a thimble on your finger and it helps you in case you slip with the needle and it goes up, into the brain, and death.

My sexuality is straight transvestite or male lesbian. It seems we are beyond the idea that I am gay and hiding it. If I had to describe how I feel in my head, I'd say I'm a complete boy plus half a girl. I don't seem to have the sixth sense that women have or their stronger senses of taste and smell. Gay men can also have it but straight men don't.

My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

Never put a sock in a toaster.

No matter how much makeup I wore, people just kept saying "Yes, sir! Would you like tea with that, sir?" "Yes, I would like tea. Why don't you put it on my breasts?" "Certainly. Tea for this man's breasts! Anything else, sir?

People still talk about a British sense of humour, or French slapstick or how the Germans have no sense of humour - and it's just rubbish. I do strongly feel that we are all the bloody same.

Performance enhancing drugs are banned in the Olympics. OK, we can swing with that. But performance 'debilitating' drugs should not be banned. Smoke a joint and win the 100 metres, fair play for you. That's pretty good. Unless someone's dangling a Mars bar off in the distance.

Poetry is very similar to music, only less notes and more words.

Puberty is the sickest joke God plays on us. So you're just noticing members of the sex: "Girls girls, ooo". Naturally you want to look your best, and God says "No! You will look the worst you've ever looked in your life!

Queen Victoria, one of our more frumpy Queen's. They're all frumpy aren't they? Because it's a bad idea when cousin's marry.