- Borat is based actually on a guy I met in southern Russia. I can't remember his name. He was a doctor. The moment I met him I was totally crying. He was a hysterically funny guy, albeit totally unintentionally.
- I remember, when I was in university I studied history, and there was this one major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw. And his quote was, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but I think it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic.
- I've been in a bizarre situation, where a country has declared me as its number-one enemy. It's inherently a comic situation. I mean, it's always risky when you don't go down the normal route. I wish I would've been there at the briefing that Bush got about who I am, who Borat is. It would have had to be great.
- I think that, essentially, I'm a private person, and to reconcile that with being famous is a hard thing. So I've been trying to have my cake and eat it too - to have my character be famous yet still lead a normal life where I'm not trapped by fame and recognizability... I guess I've been greedy. Maybe it's time to let go.
- It's wonderful that the films are successful, but every new person who sees the movie is one less person I can be 'Borat' or 'Brüno' with again, so finishing a movie means having to say goodbye. Admitting that you're never going to play the character again is like saying goodbye to a loved one. And that's hard.
- [on a scene in Hugo (2011)] So I have a bath with the dog. What happens under the bubbles is our business.
- It seems to me that Martin Scorsese makes films for himself. He is an artist. And he's one of the last remaining artists out there, and I think we should respect that.
- I'm not going to claim that everything I've done has been for a higher purpose. Yes, some of my comedy - OK, probably half my comedy - has been absolutely juvenile... and the other half completely puerile.
- Twitter could deploy an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate-speech, but they reportedly haven't because it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
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