Paul Merton Quotes

I do not welcome advice from actors; they are here to act.

Don't tell me that Colonel Parker or Brian Epstein didn't tell a little lie from time to time.

God save us from people who mean well.

That history just unfolds, independently of a specified direction, of a goal, no one is willing to admit.

People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.

Whoever writes a bad review, I put their name on a list, and they're going to get taken care of one day down the road. Otherwise, I don't let it bother me. The truth is, these are review-proof movies. The audiences are going to see it. My audience, our audience, isn't reading Esquire magazine to see if my movie is good or not. They just want to laugh, to be entertained, and lose themselves.

We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo.

The malpractice for advice-giving is like five times as much as a craniotomy.

We wanted to do it right. There is an expectation and WWE has a reputation to deliver the best show we possibly can when we perform in a new part of the world. We wanted to deliver Abu Dhabi with the best product we could. Also it's very difficult to make the travel work as we are constantly touring throughout the year.

When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.

I had been reading a lot of pilots. It was pilot season and I had decided, in my mind, that I wanted to do another show, but the bar had already been set so high, having working on Mad Men and Community, that I was really particular. I was looking for something really specific, but I didn't even know exactly what that was. When I read 'Glow', it just checked every box.

It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.

Disney is just Disney. It's a company that's very good at what it does - controlling and promoting an image - until something happens that it can't control or cover up.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent.

The biggest piece of advice that I give young comedians is: If it's your goal to get where I'm at, go do something else. Because you'll never get here. Never. The odds are so bad. Because not only do you have to be a really, really strong comedian but you also have to be lucky. And most people don't get that combination.

What is forgotten, however, is that many times the Good we create leads to Evil that will destroy us.

Sometimes our best action result in things that are most regrettable.

[Black Mirror] is always about unforeseen consequences and unforeseen problems, it's not usually that someone's created a machine that they want to enslave mankind with, it's someone's invented a new kind of... paperweight that enslaves mankind.

Every choice that we makes creates consequences, consequences in the lives of others and we experience them in ourselves, those same consequences, every choice that we make. And by the way the choices that you might think are the most important are not always the most important.

Wizard's Second Rule The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

Every problem solved is a problem made.

Be careful what you ask for because when you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud as well.

It's hard to hear that your good intentions are making things worse and tragic.

If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.

We carry around in our heads these pictures of what our lives are supposed to look like, painted by the brush of out intentions. It's the great, deep secret of humanity that in the end none of our lives look the way we thought they would. As much as we wish to believe otherwise, most of life is a reaction to circumstances.