Welcome to a collection of insightful and thought-provoking quotes by Jesse Armstrong, an accomplished screenwriter and playwright known for his sharp wit and keen observations on society. With a knack for crafting compelling narratives that delve into the complexities of human nature, Armstrong has left an indelible mark on the world of television and film. His work often explores themes of power dynamics, moral ambiguity, and the absurdities of contemporary life, offering audiences a mirror to reflect upon the intricacies of the world around them.
As the creative force behind acclaimed productions such as Succession and Peep Show, Jesse Armstrong has demonstrated a remarkable ability to blend satire with sincerity, delivering narratives that resonate with audiences on both intellectual and emotional levels. Whether through biting humor or poignant moments of introspection, his words have the power to provoke laughter, contemplation, and even discomfort as they peel back the layers of societal norms and expectations. Now, prepare to delve into the wisdom and wit of Jesse Armstrong as we present a curated selection of his most memorable quotes.
I love the breadth and space you get to explore character in so-called serialized TV, the novelistic element of maybe being able to find out who people are. But I also very much like the sitcom discipline of having a self-contained episode that you could conceivably, I hope, be able to enjoy in and of itself. Jesse Armstrong
Writing a sitcom compared with writing a novel is a bit like the difference between going on a big, noisy group holiday compared with a solitary march to the South Pole. Jesse Armstrong
I suppose terrible things happen in the world all the time and some of them we feel a particular connection to and some of them we don’t. Jesse Armstrong
It’s a good tip for writers, that – write with an actor in mind. Even if you have no hope of getting John Cleese, it’s much better to write it with him in mind because you might find someone else to do that stuff; it really helps. Jesse Armstrong
Some of the material in ‘Peep Show’ I wouldn’t sit down and watch with even my parents, who are not easily offended. Jesse Armstrong
You’ve got to trust the audience, and hopefully if you do interesting work you’ll get an audience that are interested and engaged. But if they go out thinking, ‘Ra-ra-ra, I wanna be like Malcolm Tucker,’ then at a certain point you can’t take responsibility for that person. That person’s just a moron. Jesse Armstrong
Without sounding defensive, I would say that sometimes TV critics assume that after a few episodes the writers ‘finally understand the characters,’ and as a writer I often feel that what really has happened is that the viewer has gotten to know the characters. It’s a natural process. Jesse Armstrong
There’s loads of succession stories to draw on. Jesse Armstrong
We read the financial papers and there’s a ton of tech and media mergers and acquisitions we’re likely to take inspiration from. Jesse Armstrong
Most of us now have opinions on such things as road tolling, the U.S. position on climate change, and the correct colour of a newsreader’s tie on the occasion of a state tragedy, which are way beyond the arena of things we have any control over. Jesse Armstrong
My writing partner and I usually write separately, because if we write together we are liable to go a little nuts. The person not at the keyboard can start to feel disenfranchised to the point that they sometimes make a lunge for that accoutrement of computer power, the mouse. Jesse Armstrong
The best bit about having a collaborator is plot. Plot is quite hard to get right. It is a testing intellectual exercise that feels quite different to being in the flow of voice or characterisation. I like having someone to construct a plot with. Jesse Armstrong
My daughter, who says ‘Horrible Histories’ is her favourite programme, gets that the tone is sophisticated and that it takes children seriously. It doesn’t talk down to them. Jesse Armstrong
What you don’t think when you sit down to write a show is, ‘How can I be shocking?’ That question isn’t interesting, it’s all about, ‘Is this funny, does it work?’ Jesse Armstrong
It’s touching that people only think there’s one of these around. Dynastic families are all around us. Jesse Armstrong
There’s an underlying sense that your family should accord you a greater level of safety in your interactions with them. When that’s violated, it’s particularly brutalizing. Jesse Armstrong
You can’t control how things that you’re involved with are received. But ‘The Thick of It’ wasn’t intended as an instruction manual. Writers like hearing how bits of this stuff have got out into the world – but it was not meant to be a joyful celebration of the way these people behave. Jesse Armstrong
As a private individual, it’s probably not worth having a foreign policy of your own at all. Not unless you own at least a small boat with which to try to effect it. Probably two boats is the minimum, actually. And a gun. Jesse Armstrong
Who has not stared at the blank page and not been able to think of anything to write for what at least felt like six months? Getting started is the hardest bit, obviously. Jesse Armstrong
I was of that generation of NME-reading, indie fans. Part of the reason I went to Manchester was because of New Order and The Smiths. Growing up in the north west, it was where we aspired to go out. Jesse Armstrong
There’s a reason we have a lot of pomp and ceremony around coronations and the transfer of power in democracies. It’s a scary moment. The rules aren’t clear. Jesse Armstrong
You can put all your philistine-dom on TV. Jesse Armstrong
I guess I’m interested in politics – I’m interested in ideas and ideology. Jesse Armstrong
Kids are as discerning as adults, if anything they are quicker and clearer in knowing what they like. Jesse Armstrong
I never got to see inside No 10, but I did once go to Ann Widdecombe’s ministerial office under the Commons where she sat framed by two posters on her wall, one featuring a Technicolor foetus in an anti-abortion message, the other Garfield the Cat wryly musing, ‘The Diet Starts… Tomorrow.’ Jesse Armstrong
Because Oswestry is very much an Anglo-Welsh mix it can lead you to feeling a bit bipolar sometimes. I mean, you’re in England but there’s plenty of Welsh accents to be heard, lots of Welsh-speaking chapels dotted around the place and, on market day, the place would be overrun with farmers from over the border. Jesse Armstrong
Why do I bother having all my stupid opinions? I mean, really, my ever evolving Balkan policy of the mid-1990s – what did I think was going to happen? That I was going to be supersubbed out of Oddbins and into the Foreign Office? Jesse Armstrong
I don’t buy the thing that you can’t do satire in the age of Trump. You just have to be funny and figure out the angles. Jesse Armstrong
Oswestry’s a bit in the middle of nowhere – quite tough, and quite English, in the way border towns are. Jesse Armstrong
When you talk to police communications staff and think about their job from an insider’s point of view, you can see they have to inch out along a razor’s edge every day. They have a duty to be honest. But there’s also a responsibility not to inflame. Jesse Armstrong
Political parties can be pretty internecine, and pretty savage. Jesse Armstrong
Getting under the surface of real-life humans’ poker faces humans is hard in a sitcom, even a drama. Jesse Armstrong
From working on heavily researched films such as ‘Four Lions’ and ‘In the Loop,’ I knew that research in itself is nothing and it’s everything. Jesse Armstrong
Under a government committed to cutting public services to the bone, the police are often left to clean up all sorts of untidy situations that are really social work or housing, mental and physical health issues. Jesse Armstrong
Standups always like the room cold, and if you’re shooting a sitcom live you want it a little bit chilly for the audience. I don’t know why – you’d have to ask a combination of an evolutionary psychologist and a building-maintenance man. Jesse Armstrong
Succession moments are always dangerous for democracies. Jesse Armstrong
Wimbledon fortnight is always a testing time for the home worker. I spend most of it on the phone to my writing partner pretending to chat about character motivation when actually I’m checking if he’s working – listening out for any telltale bleeps from the line-call machine off the TV in the background. Jesse Armstrong
For people who come from powerful families, there is nothing in life quite as interesting as being at court. Jesse Armstrong
If you have seven homes, every room is not a beautifully curated expression of your personality. Jesse Armstrong
War isn’t funny, obviously. Jesse Armstrong
Comedy is not good for anything, really. Apart from being one of the only things that makes life worth living. Jesse Armstrong
I do think it’s really tough being super-rich, really hard-working and wanting to get some sort of immortality by passing on the organisation to your kids. But then looking at your kids and thinking, ‘Oh, they’re just these privileged people who haven’t had to struggle. Am I really going to just give it all to them?’ Jesse Armstrong
Almost anyone can give me the willies. Man or woman, Asian, black or white, young or old. Jesse Armstrong
In 2005, the Iraq war was entering its third year and no one believed that we were going to find WMDs any more. The prewar claims of their certain existence were becoming an embarrassing joke, a big present we’d been offered that was getting ever later in showing up. Jesse Armstrong
A lot of research went into ‘Succession.’ I wrote the pilot solo, so there was a good deal of my own research and life experience in there. Jesse Armstrong
Talking about satire feels like death. Jesse Armstrong
We always knew that we could write what it’s like to be men together, bickering, but also having this fondness. Jesse Armstrong
Hit shows are very difficult to achieve. You need to have everything just right – that’s what’s so terrifying. Jesse Armstrong
As a comedy writer, I work largely from home. Jesse Armstrong
With my writing partner, Sam Bain, I have gone on to write for lots of shows, including our co-creation ‘Peep Show,’ two series of which have been shown on Channel 4. But politics has always attracted me. Jesse Armstrong
The truth is that when writing a TV show or a film you are a part of a team. And though you might be the architect who makes the initial drawings, somewhere along the line it all has to be given up, handed over. To the costume department and the actors, the art department, the director and the producers. Jesse Armstrong
I like people to make their own decisions. Jesse Armstrong
You have to be careful. You have to be able to stand behind what you write and believe in it. Jesse Armstrong
You’ve only got so much plot, character and psychological capital. One day it will be gone and you don’t know when that day is. The fear is that it’ll sneak up on you when you’re not looking. Jesse Armstrong
I read about lots of media moguls: Sumner Redstone, Conrad Black, Robert Maxwell. Jesse Armstrong
I’m relatively sensitive to the atmosphere of what places are like, what relationships are like, and the feeling of power in rooms. Jesse Armstrong
I guess Trump is gone, but the shape that he gave to the American political and social environment – that still resonates. There’s a certain amount of post-traumatic stress in America about the possibilities of what could have happened, and what people still feel did happen. Jesse Armstrong
Hanging around a lot of really intelligent people for months on end, talking about whatever’s in the news, is fun to me. Jesse Armstrong
Far too interesting are times when you wake up to find that the tube line you take to work has been blown up and people you know might be dead. Not interesting enough are times when too much stuff about county cricket makes it on to the news pages. Jesse Armstrong
Between 1995 and 1997 I was a researcher for a Labour MP. And looking back I realise I wasn’t a very good one. Jesse Armstrong
So often in TV you’re looking at the monitor thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, that sort of looks a bit like that other TV show that we’re pretending to make.’ Jesse Armstrong
Catch-22′ is the big daddy of funny war novels. It’s capacious and occasionally rambling. It’s a bible of literate comedy: you can find anything you want inside – it’s all in there. Jesse Armstrong
Character is key. Once you’ve got that voice going, everything else can follow. If you’ve also got the right tone, you’re in the right area – an inconsistent tone can screw up a project. Jesse Armstrong
I’m in the game of realism so happy endings probably feel a little bit too neat for life. Jesse Armstrong
I can’t say I connected with many of my co-workers at Westminster. My MP’s office was sandwiched between those of Peter Mandelson and Harriet Harman, but I never mixed with the important-looking young men and women who bustled in and out of their doors. Jesse Armstrong
As a writer you often watch things with a certain distance.. More often, you’re worried that something that you have invented is going to become reality, and you’ll look like you copied it. Jesse Armstrong
I’ve always found it easy to write comedy in the area where people have strong emotions. Jesse Armstrong
Roy Chubby Brown’s offensive material is disgusting to me, an offensive beating-down of people who have already been beaten down plenty, culturally and historically. Jesse Armstrong
In my own experience with films, books, plays, TV, I don’t want somebody telling me what it means, because I think I know, and I want my interpretation to be valid, because it is valid. Jesse Armstrong
It doesn’t worry me, the idea of coming up with new stuff. Jesse Armstrong
Wars are hard to look at head-on. Jesse Armstrong
I’m uncomfortable with the word satire. In the U.K., there’s quite a bit of sledgehammer weight to that word, which is the antithesis of the subtle approach I strive for. Jesse Armstrong
Red Alert’ is a gripping cold war bomber-command procedural. But read now, you can see ‘Dr Strangelove’ – the film which took the book as source material – peeping through the gaps. Jesse Armstrong
I wouldn’t defend comedy that I find offensive, but there is a lot of comedy that some people find offensive which I would defend. You can’t talk usefully in generalisations. Jesse Armstrong
There are lots of great characters in fiction who viewers and readers have engaged with that behave badly. Great characters can be unfaithful. They can lie and cheat. Jesse Armstrong
All powerful people make foolish decisions and end up in humiliating and embarrassing situations, as well as wielding their power. Jesse Armstrong
There’s that saying: ‘No man is a hero to his valet.’ It’s the same between flatmates. Jesse Armstrong
All the dramas I admire most – ‘Six Feet Under,’ ‘The Sopranos’ – even when the scenes aren’t laugh-out-loud funny, per se, there’s a comic twist that gives the stories an energy. Jesse Armstrong
With an unscripted take, you let the thing live and bring an extra level of life to the performance. Sometimes you get extra jokes because the actors are super smart and see a funnier or more true way to go with the scene. Jesse Armstrong
The human propensity to having opinions must, I guess, have started as a pretty useful evolutionary tool. Jesse Armstrong
Sitcom characters, my writing partner Sam Bain and I sometimes tell each other, are not normally self-conscious. Or not quite. The best sitcom characters are probably just a little self-conscious. Deep enough to feel pain and humiliation, but shallow enough that there are no hidden depths. Jesse Armstrong
I wouldn’t like to say I’m a class warrior. Jesse Armstrong
Writers tend to feel like outsiders. Jesse Armstrong
This is the tragedy of the entrepreneur. They literally cannot slack off. That’s why Alan Sugar looks so jowly, tired and angry, and Richard Branson so phonily, aggressively cheery. Jesse Armstrong
Everyone has tacit levels of trust, don’t we? In every interaction that takes place in our professional and personal lives we have boundaries that we sort of trust the other person not to breach. Jesse Armstrong
I can just about enjoy it. There is an initial hurdle, where I feel like, oh goodness me, I’m going to watch a sitcom or a drama and it’s my competition. But luckily quality tends to override that, so when I have been watching ‘Him and Her’ or ‘Girls’ or any of the shows I admire, you simply enjoy them. Jesse Armstrong
If you’re making a satirical show and you’re aiming to change something, I’d say you’re on a fool’s errand. Jesse Armstrong
Unlike many hour-long scripted American dramas, ‘Succession’ has very few standing sets. Jesse Armstrong
It’s sad ending ‘Peep Show,’ but it’ll be fun starting some new shows. Jesse Armstrong
The writers’ room is an open forum where anything mad or weird that aggressively shakes up the show can be suggested and considered. Jesse Armstrong
If you’re on your way to meet your maker, you are not, are you, going to stop en route for a foot-long tuna sub? Jesse Armstrong
The camera reacts with the speed of a human being rather than somebody who knows what’s going to happen next. And that lets the comedy and drama play in a way which I think subliminally makes you feel like you’re in the room. Jesse Armstrong
The Day Today’ was at least as interested in satirising form as content. Jesse Armstrong
When you’re a nerd, you know there’s a million types of neurotic self-loathing. Jesse Armstrong
I started reading about media moguls in general, and Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch both made the same joke: they both were asked, ‘What will happen when you die?’ and they both said they didn’t plan to die. It just struck me: what’s going on with these men in their 80s and 90s who are still packing their diaries every day? Jesse Armstrong
Trump is just extraordinarily unusual. Jesse Armstrong
If you’re writing a show about modern media moguls, Rupert Murdoch and his family are an incredibly important model and some of their disputes and the dynamics have been very vivid. Jesse Armstrong
One of the things that strikes me when I’ve read about these families – whether it be the Maxwells or the Redstones or the Julio-Claudians – is that, when you get that combination of money, power, and family relations, things get so complicated that you can justify actions to yourself that are pretty unhealthy to your well-being as a human being. Jesse Armstrong
It’s a lucky kink for comedy writers that particular English obsession and interest with class and social difference. It maybe is not good for society but it’s good for the comic writer. Jesse Armstrong
We have characteristics we’re born with, that are molded by the lives we live. And so to have a psychologically engaged show, our view of human nature is that it doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from somewhere. Jesse Armstrong