Peter Sellers (1925 – 1980)
Most famous under his stage name Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor.
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Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat.
If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.
Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!
We don't want to start a nuclear war unless we really have to, now do we Jack?
Conversation like television set on honeymoon... unnecessary.
I'm a classic example of all humorists — only funny when I'm working.
I writhe when I see myself on the screen. I'm such a dreadfully clumsy hulking image. I say to myself, "Why doesn't he get off? Why doesn't he get off?" I mean, I look like such an idiot. Some fat awkward thing dredged up from some third-rate drama company. I must stop thinking about it, otherwise I shan't be able to go on working.
People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it.
Criticism should be done by critics, and a critic should have some training and some love of the medium he is discussing. But these days, gossip-columnist training seems to be enough qualification. I suppose an ability to stand on your feet through interminable cocktail parties and swig interminable gins in between devouring masses of fried prawns may just possibly help you to understand and appreciate what a director is getting at, but for the life of me I can't see how.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Peter Sellers, a showbiz baby, was carried onstage two weeks into his life by vaudevillian Dickie Henderson, who encouraged the audience to join him in singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Little Peter instantly burst into tears and the audience erupted into laughter and applause. From Pete's perspective, this emotional scenario was played out more or less consistently until his death in 1980.
If I can't really find a way to live with myself, I can't expect anyone else to live with me.
He had a conspicuous individual talent, but it was interpretive, not directly creative. He could never have emulated Chaplin, Keaton or Jacques Tati and set up a whole project by himself, controlling its every detail even if the task took years. But there is no point carping. He had such a protean capacity that it would have been a miracle if he had been in full command of it.
There is no me. I do not exist ... There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.
It won't be easy, that is why I have always failed where others have succeeded.
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