"Our trip opened my eyes to how insane the rules are in Britain, CCTV cameras everywhere, congestion charge, a ludicrous nanny state. Today, health and safety are out of control. In Africa, garage attendants smoked as they filled the bikes. I took great pleasure in that." Actor Ewan MacGregor expressed his distaste for “insane” health and safety regulations in Britain following his 15,000 mile motorcycle tour of Africa, Associated Free Press, 22/10/2007
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“I can't be the only voice like this. In England people should speak up more, defend themselves, but it's hard against all the forces at work. The uglification of England is under way by people with no vision. I detest it.” Artist David Hockney, Guardian, 15/05/2007
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"The present Prime Minister is a fiend because he is against freedom of choice, particularly when it comes to smoking." Jazz and blues singer George Melly, 28/12/2006
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"I love smoking. It gives me such pleasure. I've been smoking since I was 15. I fight against being made to feel a pariah. I have a big chunk of anarchism in my make-up and get pleasure out of doing what people think I should not be doing.” Actor Jeremy Irons, an “avowed nicotine fan”, speaking out in The Times, 29/07/2006
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“The thing I would like to say about it is that it would have delighted Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, as you know, was anti-smoking. You couldn't smoke at Adolf Hitler's dining table, so he'd be pleased, wouldn't he? Congratulations Scotland." Comedian, actor and director Mel Smith threatened to smoke onstage as cigar-chomping leader Winston Churchill at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland on Sunday, 16/07/2006
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"We sent all the Puritans over to America, so that England could stay the way it is. These people are really just against all forms of pleasure." Actor Stephen Fry, Daily Telegraph, 24/06/2006
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"Pubs aren't health clubs, you don't go to a pub for a health club. It's a very, very mean-spirited act by people I think who don't know what they're doing." Artist David Hockney, commenting on the ban on smoking in public places in Scotland, BBC News, 26/03/2006
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"I'm sure I only do it to piss them all off," Pop diva and actress Lisa Stansfield revels in insurrection as she lights up on stage, producing ripples of knowing cheers, Guardian, 19/07/2005
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“I’m sorry but we’re not in LA anymore,” Actor Johnny Depp, responding to an American woman who leaned over and complained while he was dining at Scalini’s restaurant in London. After this polite reply, Depp reportedly resumed his fag, Daily Mail, 30/11/2004
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“No-one's even making a vague pretence of doing a story that's realistic, or having a person who does anything realistic. We're so strangled by political correctness that only a villain can smoke a cigarette." British actor Rupert Everett, criticizes the authenticity of Hollywood films, The Times, 02/07/2004
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"Is the noble Lord aware that, at the age of 80, there are very few pleasures left to me, but one of them is passive smoking?" Baroness Trumpington, former Tory minister and ex-smoker, in the House of Lords, 01/07/2003
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"I don't smoke but I'd rather be with my pals who do than sitting alone in a pub with no people and no atmosphere." Brian Monteith, Conservative MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Edinburgh Evening News, 09/05/2003
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"At least by going to the jungle I won't have people telling me where and when I can smoke. Wish me luck and keep on smoking, if you want to!" Antony Worrall Thompson, TV chef, restaurateur and patron of Forest, with a message for smokers before taking part in I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!, 24/04/2003
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"I don't expect special treatment, but to be thrown out into the cold every time I want a sneaky ciggie is a bit much." Actress Anna Friel is thrown out of her own film premiere party, 26/11/2002
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"Ironically, it may be that the clampdown on smoking in so many public places means that smoking in the home is actually increasing, as smokers feel it is the one place in which they can smoke without interference." Amanda Sandford, ASH, BBC Online, 19/11/2002
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"For the first time, we have a study large enough and detailed enough to look at separate effects of alcohol and tobacco reliably. When we did this, we found that drinking, but not smoking, increases the risk of breast cancer.'
Professor Sir Richard Doll, co-author of a new study from Cancer Research UK, Sunday Mail, 13/11/2002
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"My doctor phoned and said you don't deserve this news, but your lungs are crystal clear." Chainsmoker Nicky Haslam, 63, tells Deborah Ross the good news, Independent, 14 /10/2002
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"Yeah, babe, you just watch. When I die they'll all blame the fried egg sandwiches and the fags ... and it'll have been all the fucking wholemeal toast and fresh vegetables." Actress Kathy Burke, Observer, 10/02/2002
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'It's amazing! No smoking on the train! What happened? Are we in Waukegan, Illinois? Europe is civilisation. You're not supposed to be gawked at or pointed at or mocked for smoking. I've always thought of starting my own airline, if I could get a bunch of investors together, called 'Air Smoke'. We'd make smoking mandatory. We'd issue the customers a little packet of cigarettes and tell them that we expect it to be done by the time we reach our destination." Actor Johnny Depp comments on the decision to ban smoking on Eurostar, The Big Issue, 04/02/2002
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'Fuck off.' Depp's former girlfriend Kate Moss responds to an attendant who asked her to extinguish her cigarette at the Mario Testino exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, 02/02/2002
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'Smokers of the world unite! We have been bullied and nannied long enough. And if Tony Blair is tempted to follow the lead of Ireland and Italy, let us remind him that only 10.7 million voted Labour last time. But 15 million smoke'. Journalist Tom Utley, Daily Telegraph, 02/02/2002
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"Smokers pay £19,000 a minute to the Exchequer, and that's enough to pay for the whole police force. Or to put it another way, for every £1 we cost the NHS, we give it £3.60. Please don't encourage the state to dictate how I live my life." Journalist Jeremy Clarkson on smokers' contribution to the economy, Sunday Times, 18/11/2001
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"I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I'll do it again." Bart Simpson, The Simpsons
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"This columnist is now the official Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year. I was honoured by the pressure group Forest for complaining bitterly about the anti-smoking busybodies I encountered when pregnant." Lauren Booth, New Statesman, February 2001
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'I know Fabien [Barthez] smokes ... In England, it's a rare thing to see a player smoking but, all in all, I prefer that to an alcoholic.' Man Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson, February 2001
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'When I smoked myself - up to 60 on some working days - I resolved never to become an anti-smoking bore because I hated them so much. By and large I've stuck to that: if people ask to smoke in our house we gladly cry, 'Yes, of course! Here are ashtrays, cigar clippers, pipe reamers, hookahs, oxygen masks - anything you need!' Simon Hoggart, Guardian, November 2000
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'Smoking, I would now suggest, may be here to stay.' James Walton, editor of The Faber Book of Smoking, November 2000
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"Apparently cigarettes contain embalming fluid. This explains why I'm possibly the best-preserved woman in Britain." Sue Carroll, The Mirror, February 2000
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"I might smoke more.' Actor Jeremy Irons announces his New Year resolution, Sunday Times, December 1999
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"I enjoy it too much." David Bowie explains why he will never give up smoking, Edinburgh Evening News, November 1999
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'It's like being back at school; one is constantly looking for a suitable bike shed.' Model Sophie Dahl on smoking in New York, Independent, November 1999
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"One has to stand up to the more extreme anti-smokers because they aren't representative of the public as a whole. If I wanted to live in an intolerant, smoke free universe I'd move to California, but I don't and nor do millions of other people." Antony Worrall Thompson, TV chef, restaurateur and patron of Forest, August 1999
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"If you want to smoke you should be allowed to do so. For those who smoke it is a natural, relaxing part of life." Antony Worrall Thompson, August 1999
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"Supporting smokers is worth doing. Nobody else wants to because they want to be politically correct."
Antony Worrall Thompson, August 1999
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"When on occasion I'm asked by groups of aspiring writers what they should do to get on, my advice is always, emphatically, smoke. Smoke often and smoke with gusto. It's a little known, indeed little researched, fact of literature and journalism that no non smoker is worth reading. And writers who give up become crashing bores." Novelist and journalist AA Gill, Sunday Times, July 1999
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"Oh, I like smoking, I do. I smoke for my health, my mental health. Tobacco gives you little pauses, a rest from life. I don't suppose anyone smoking a pipe would have road rage, would they?" Artist David Hockney, Daily Telegraph, July 1999
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"I neither coughed nor felt sick. Instead, a sensation of wellbeing filled me, and I became slightly wired, not the reaction you get from alcohol, but sharper and calmer." BBC reporter John Simpson, experiencing a cigar for the first time, Sunday Telegraph, July 1999
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"Most winters I go to a small island in the Maldives where I sit on icing sugar sand, with azure sea in front of me, light my pipe and read a good book. That's as close to utopia as I'm ever going to get." TV comedy writer Laurence Marks, July 1999
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"Sometimes I run around Regent's Park and go to the gym, I can manage about an hour, but stop for a cigarette every so often." Comedian Julian Clary, London Evening Standard, March 1999
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"I suppose something has to be done to placate and humour the anti-smoking lobbyists, but while I gave up eight years ago I would certainly not presume to impose my views on anybody else to give up such a pleasure." Chef de cuisine Michel Roux, Sunday Business, January 1999
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'I don't smoke anymore, except on National No Smoking Day as a protest against [those] who want to control our lives.' Journalist and broadcaster Richard Littlejohn, The Sun, March 1998
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'If I'm seen smoking in the street, people should come up to me and say thank you very much for keeping my tax bill down.' Journalist and TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, BBC Radio 4, March 1998
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"And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), 'The Betrothed'
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"If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go." Mark Twain (1835-1910)