Ricky Gervais Quotes

My brother and sister were much older. They were planned. I was not planned for. I was called the mistake, amongst other things.

My sister and my brother, of whom I have not spoken before, were considerably older than I; it seemed almost as if we belonged to different generations.

Parents always stay older than you, but sibling sort of become adults together, and that complicates that relationship, I think.

Our problems stem from our childhood. Ray was, for so long, the only boy. Then I arrive and take all his limelight away from him. That must have quite a profound effect. I sometimes think that Ray was only happy for three-and-a-half years in his life. And those were the three-and-a-half years before I was born.

It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter, and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.

I had my footballing heroes such as Bryan Robson and Diego Maradona but my dad was a rugby league star, and he was my real hero. But the relationship with my mum was rocky and we saw things that would affect any youngster.

I work with my brother a lot, and we don't fight - probably because it's not two girls. And he's six years older. But I have daughters who are three years apart, and they fight all the time.

I have two sisters; one is two years older, and one is eight years older. That helped me understand how completely different sister relationships can be.

I'm the youngest of three children and grew up in Ealing, west London. My eldest sister, Nutun, is nine years older than me, and my middle sister, Rupa, is three years older.

Cooper and Peyton really competed a lot, they fought a lot. But Eli was so much younger. He's the little brother.

My parents split before my fifth birthday, and I moved with Mom and my three siblings to her native Oahu.

Sometimes I act younger than my daughters. But that's when they say, 'Mama, stop it!'

I've actually never played with any of my brothers before. They've always been too old for me.

You always have to take care of the sisters first, so my dad would buy Barbies and stuff and I wouldn't get anything. So I don't want any other kid to feel like that.

On her daughter Melissa: The only time she really cried is when I sat her down and told her that she was not adopted.

I was bullied by my siblings and cousins, so make-believe was a way in which I could be in charge. When I was like 10 and my sister was about five, I convinced her that she was going to jail because she used a bad word. The doorbell happened to ring, and I told her it was the police. I made her pack her bags. She was crying, and then I said to her, "I forgive you, and I'm gonna tell the cop to go away." Then, of course, she loved me. It was terrible - she still remembers it. I had a sordid sense of humor.

My mother never had time for me. When you're the middle child in a family of five million, you don't get any attention.

I always knew she was being funny, but when I tell my therapist that my mom played the trust game with me and let me fall on the ground, my therapist does not find that funny. She's like, "That's the reason for everything! That's why you have such a hard time with trust!" And I'm like, "I don't really have a hard time with trust. I thought it was funny."

What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?

When I was 3 years old, my parents got a dog. I was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me.

I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long. She edited out, maybe burned, every single photograph where I'm naked.

When anybody, no matter how old they are, loses a parent, I think it hurts the same as if you were only five years old, you know? I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.

Most of us have grown up, you know, I think there are very few people who have grown up in a home that was, like, super normal. You know, we all have dispositions because maybe you didn't have a mom or you didn't have a dad, maybe your mom died early or maybe mom and dad argued or they got a divorce or who knows? You have issues that maybe you've started younger or maybe you have your own issues because you have them.

My childhood was lonely. Both my parents were away a lot, working, and the maid basically raised me. And I think that's where a lot of my comedy comes from. Not only was the maid very funny and witty, but when my mother came home I'd use humour to try and get her attention. If I made mommy laugh, then maybe everything would be all right. I think that's where it [my comedy] all started.