The voices / 17 fragments

Eddie Izzard

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01Undated

They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.

Eddie Izzard / quote

02Undated

But with dogs, we do have "bad dog." Bad dog exists. "Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!" The dog is saying, "Who are you to judge me? You human beings who’ve had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!""Well, if you put it that way, I think you’ve got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.

Eddie Izzard / quote

03Undated

I had the luxury of knowing what I wanted to do. So I just sat on the bed and came up with a plan for myself:"I have to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. But I don't have the confidence to do a production there because I've never gone before, and I don't even know how to get there or what to do once I get there. So I will just act as if I do have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll just borrow confidence from a future version of myself. Once I've been to the Edinburgh Fringe and performed a show there, then I will have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I will go to the bank manager of confidence (in some part of my brain) and I will borrow that confidence from the future, and then I can wear it like a cloak, and I will talk to everyone with this confidence."It was out there as a concept, but it worked.

Eddie Izzard / quote

04Undated

Two languages in one brain? No one can live at that speed!

Eddie Izzard / quote

05Undated

So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!

Eddie Izzard / quote

06Undated

It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized you could buy a packet of cereal with a free gift and then just stick your hand in and root around in the packet until you found the free thing. It seems a much simpler way. But that took me about fifteen years to work out.

Eddie Izzard / quote

07Undated

If you are an LGBT+ person and you come out, you have to go through your knight’s quest to create ground for yourself, to create a space for yourself, to stand there and say, “I exist. I have no reason to feel guilt or shame. I am proud to exist, and while I’m not perfect, I deserve to exist in society just like anyone else.”This became my first big fight.While I consider myself to be fantastically boring, I realized that if I took on my own sexual identity and came out and just told people about it and tried to have a chat with them—tried to be offhand and casual about it—and tried to build our place in society and humanity, then that would be a good mission. This is where I exist in society. I am just this guy. I am transgender, and I exist. But that is just my sexuality. More important than that is that I perform comedy, I perform drama, I run marathons, and I’m an activist in politics. These are the things I do. How you self-identify with your sexuality matters not one wit. What you do in life—what you do to add to the human existence—that is what matters. That is the beautiful thing.

Eddie Izzard / quote

08Undated

We must have been hunters and gatherers but some of us were just waiters and hopers.

Eddie Izzard / quote

09Undated

Boy bands should be exploded from a great height. They're just pretty people singing music written by others.

Eddie Izzard / quote

10Undated

Cats have a scam going - you buy the food, they eat the food, they go away; that's the deal.

Eddie Izzard / quote

11Undated

Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both... different. In spelling.

Eddie Izzard / quote

12Undated

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

Eddie Izzard / quote

13Undated

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

Eddie Izzard / quote

14Undated

Never put a sock in a toaster.

Eddie Izzard / quote

15Undated

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

Eddie Izzard / quote

16Undated

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.

Eddie Izzard / quote

17Undated

So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!

Eddie Izzard / quote