TERRY JONES

I like my stories once removed.

I'd always thought that if Python was going to go on at all, it'd be nice to get into storylines.

Fatherhood is wonderful.

I'm cheerfully optimistic about life. Optimism is very important!

I'd like something that peels potatoes really quickly - that would be wonderful.

You know, I've never thought of myself as a comedian.

I don't think people who have children are acting selfishly or unselfishly. Having a child who'll be loved, to parents who love each other, is the important thing.

I've never been good at improvising.

I'm a good cook; one of my specialities is reindeer and potato pie.

It doesn't worry me what anyone says, except when publicity hurts others.

We will definitely not burn the Koran, no. Not today, not ever.

I don't think you need religion.

We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans. We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it.

I like fantasy.

Medieval learning was really advanced.

I've got a soft spot for Theatr Colwyn because my granddad used to run the Colwyn amateur dramatic society in the 1930s.

We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition. We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.

Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it.

I spent my earliest years in Colwyn Bay in north Wales with my mother and grandmother, while my father was stationed with the RAF in India.

Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats.

I've been very lucky to have been able to act, write and direct and not have to choose just the one thing.

The funny thing about history is that we imagine that people didn't laugh in the old days, but of course they did, at stupid things.

Saying We will destroy terrorism is about as meaningful as saying: We shall annihilate mockery.

Why do I feel so exercised about what we think of the people of the Middle Ages? ... I guess it's because so many of their voices are ringing vibrantly in my ears - Chaucer's, Boccaccio's, Henry Knighton's, Thomas Walsingham's. Froissart's, Jean Creton's... writers and contemporary historians of the period who seem to me just as individual, just as alive as we are today. We need to get to know these folk better in order to know who we are ourselves.

Short or long to Goblin City? The straight way's short But the long way's pretty.