The Good Quote
Open menu
Quotes
Authors
Topics
More
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
Home
Authors
Dylan Moran
Irish
Comedian
About the author
One thing that's coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Books
Showing off seemed to me to be a highly valuable and necessary activity when I was 20.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
The characters can't be wittier than people are in real life. They have to be character witty.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Character
#Life
#People
#Witty
The trend now is to get away from stage bound sitcoms.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Now
The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Truth
#Job
You achieve the surreal jokes through the realism by making it elastic.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Jokes
#Realism
Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Time
#Being
We are both drawn to surreal situations so the writing was a joy.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Writing
#Joy
I thought The Office was good, though I didn't think of it as a sitcom, just as a very good programme.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Thought
#Office
It's true that I have spoken about doing a book before, but then everyone you speak to is planning to write a book.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Planning
You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Service
#Growing up
I have a very low level of recognition, which is fine by me.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
Black Books adheres to a more old fashioned, traditional sitcom format, which I think works, because in its own way, it's quite theatrical.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Old
#Books
I'm actually about as famous as a fourth division footballer from the 70s.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Famous
I don't really think of myself as an actor.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Actor
I think that women just have a primeval instinct to make soup, which they will try to foist on anybody who looks like a likely candidate.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Will
#Instinct
#Women
I don't want to do the same thing over and over again.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Want
I think a lot of the time you just parody yourself.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Time
I never thought I want to do anything, really, except not go to work properly and turn up at the same place every day and eat sandwiches in the same canteen, if I can possibly help it, as I don't think I'd be very good at it.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Want
#Work
#Day
#Thought
#Help
I have no qualifications to do anything else and there weren't any formal application forms you had to fill in for stand-up, so I thought I'd give that a twist.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
#Thought
In the same way, there is some creature gnawing away inside of me, urging me to do things in different ways.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian
If I hadn't done this I might have ended up digging the roads.
Dylan Moran,
Irish
Comedian