To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say and always a clever thing to say.

My idea of good company is the company of clever well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation that is what I call good company.

People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft funny clever melodies and they also make a lot of music for kids which is terrific but when you see them in concert they can rock the house.

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny very verbal very clever very witty.

I think I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple that what I find funny finds a wide audience. I'm not particularly intellectual or clever or minority-focused in my creative instincts. And I'm certainly not aware of suppressing more sophisticated ambitions.

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

Education without values as useful as it is seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

I was born and brought up in Liverpool with my clever little sister Jemma who is 14 and wants to be a vet. My mum Jane is an administrator and my dad Peter is a taxi driver.

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow and courage from the jay who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

I think that Obama is very cool. And I think he's clever and I think he can be witty. But I don't think he's funny in either the way that Reagan was funny - or John McCain and Dick Cheney are both funny in that ruthless kind of mean way.