Top 100 Steve Coogan Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The truth is somewhere in the middle of funny and serious.”

— Steve Coogan

2. “If things don’t come easy to you, you have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”

— Steve Coogan

3. “Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.”

— Steve Coogan

4. “I’m 47, my girlfriend’s 33; she’s 14 years younger than me, back of the net!”

— Steve Coogan

5. “Guide dogs for the blind. It’s cruel really, isn’t it? Getting a dog to lead a man round all day. Not fair on either of them.”

— Steve Coogan

6. “That’s what gives people hope – that you can still love someone from afar and you can still have those feelings across an ocean.”

— Steve Coogan

7. “I’m just a good Catholic boy – I do naughty things and feel guilty about them.”

— Steve Coogan

8. “I always think that, even when people behave badly, if you like something deep inside them, then there is a tiny bit of nobility – they wish they could be good.”

— Steve Coogan

9. “Hacking into a victim of crime’s phone is a sort of poetically elegant manifestation of a modus operandi the tabloids have.”

— Steve Coogan

10. “I am lucky to be in a profession that is not age dependent.”

— Steve Coogan

11. “No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and even for people who aren’t religious, you can learn things from religious people.”

— Steve Coogan

12. “Even if I screw up in my personal life, as long as I’m not destroying myself, I just think, “Okay, I screwed up.” I’m not Mother Theresa.”

— Steve Coogan

13. “In my mind God made Adam and Eve, he didn’t make Adam and Steve.”

— Steve Coogan

14. “A woman wearing a revealing dress will always be sexier than a naked woman.”

— Steve Coogan

15. “I love Sherlock Holmes. I’ve got all his books, leather-bound. What I thought was great about Sherlock Holmes was that not only was he a supersleuth, he was also a hard worker. Not only did he go out and solve the crimes, he came home and wrote it all down. Fantastic. That’s why I admire him.”

— Steve Coogan

16. “When you see a crowd of people jumping up and down at a pop concert, all gloriously in the moment, I don’t think you’ll ever see a comedian there. They’ll all be standing at the sides, looking at how it all fits together.”

— Steve Coogan

17. “I’m not Mother Teresa. But I’m not Frank Bough, either. I am getting older and a bit more sensible. I’m not going to be popping up in dungeons every six months. If you catch me preaching fidelity while I am shagging chickens then throw the book at me. Otherwise, leave me alone.”

— Steve Coogan

18. “Convoy? Michael, you’re hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.”

— Steve Coogan

19. “I don’t apologize for my behavior anymore. Whatever I do or don’t do shouldn’t matter. Moral certainty is dangerous. Moral certainty is what makes people go to war unnecessarily and illegally. Morality, as any halfway intelligent human being would tell you, is a very subjective thing.”

— Steve Coogan

20. “If you chase something too desperately, it eludes you.”

— Steve Coogan

21. “Actually the best thing I did was to get thrown out by my wife. She’s living with a fitness instructor. He drinks that yellow stuff in tins. He’s an idiot.”

— Steve Coogan

22. “I love people who are openly gay in theatre, because they have license to do what they like, and there’s a kind of artistic liberal tolerance thing that goes on.”

— Steve Coogan

23. “If you got the balls to follow something through, you can end up being the coolest, smartest guy in the room, because you’ve literally put your ass on the line.”

— Steve Coogan

24. “I like the British public. There is something in this country called tall poppy syndrome. You’re good but you’re not that good, pal, OK? The natural state of our nation is slightly miserable, and probably the healthier for it. In America you don’t get a key down the side of your Bentley...”

— Steve Coogan

25. “People regurgitate the same old cliches and it becomes like a photocopy of a photocopy of something that’s vaguely interesting.”

— Steve Coogan

26. “The Bible, undoubtedly, is a mixed bag. I don’t see myself coming back to the Church. I do like the tradition. If you come from a strong culture, you can decide what you agree with and what you don’t agree with. If you’re given a blank canvas, it’s almost harder in life.”

— Steve Coogan

Featured in: Strong Quotes

27. “It’s arguably the best newspaper in the world.”

— Steve Coogan

28. “A friend of mine once said he like his women like his parmesan: strong smelling and shaved. I don’t agree with that, but I don’t like hairy women.”

— Steve Coogan

Featured in: Strong Quotes

29. “Two thousand years ago, the Holy family had a ramble from Nazareth to Bethlehem – in much the same way as I’m having a ramble from Norwich to Swaffham. Although I’m not comparing myself to Jesus – I don’t want to get bogged down in that whole controversy again.”

— Steve Coogan

30. “All those people who go around saying Life begins at forty, they’re notable by their absence. The nerve.”

— Steve Coogan

31. “I’m an entertainer. I don’t go round saying I’m a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest.”

— Steve Coogan

32. “I think it’s always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare. When I was at school, I was in Hamlet. I played Claudius, who’s supposed to be a 60-year-old man, and I was like 18. It’s inherently ridiculous seeing 18-year-old boys with gray beards. That’s always funny.”

— Steve Coogan

33. “That was liquid football.”

— Steve Coogan

34. “I woke with a start. At first I assumed I’d trumped myself awake again.”

— Steve Coogan

35. “The best feeling in the world is performing in front of a live audience who like what you’re doing. I can understand why people become dictators just because of the thrill they get making the speeches.”

— Steve Coogan

36. “I’m not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.”

— Steve Coogan

37. “I think there’s as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.”

— Steve Coogan

38. “What I don’t like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.”

— Steve Coogan

39. “Look at the 18th century. There was a lot more freedom going on.”

— Steve Coogan

40. “The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you’ve immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.”

— Steve Coogan

41. “I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It’s more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.”

— Steve Coogan

42. “I don’t like new bands. I don’t want to be one of those pathetic old men in their forties who knows exactly what 18-year-olds are into.”

— Steve Coogan

43. “I think it’s always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare.”

— Steve Coogan

44. “I think we all have a slightly gay gene inside us, don’t we? It might be 0.00001 per cent as mine is, or one per cent as yours is.”

— Steve Coogan

45. “The important thing is not to be defined by what others think of you.”

— Steve Coogan

46. “I knew lots of Irish ladies in my life who would say daft things and then would just say something incredibly truthful in a very simple way with simple language – a few well chosen words that would take an intellectual five minutes to express. I like that.”

— Steve Coogan

47. “When I see friends from school I think they’ve all grown old and I’ve stayed the same.”

— Steve Coogan

48. “I don’t like big feet. It reminds me of gammon.”

— Steve Coogan

49. “I’ve met people who’ve dismissed me, and then they find out that they like my work, and suddenly their attitude changes toward me. And I think that’s very funny and very human. But it’s also very unattractive.”

— Steve Coogan

50. “If you start to disrespect the character you’re playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it’s all technique. It’s like watching a juggler – you can be impressed by it, but it’s not going to touch you in any way.”

— Steve Coogan