The line is most often credited to Ricky Gervais. AZQuotes gives it as a Facebook post by him dated October 30, 2013, and Goodreads files it under his name too. You can check the wording on AZQuotes.
The attribution is shakier than those pages suggest. A discussion thread on Survive France says the line may have been borrowed from the Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck, whose version appears on a quote page dated April 2018. That commenter could not find a date showing who wrote it first. I could not find a book, interview or dated original by Geluck, so I can't confirm his claim either.
What the record supports is this: the sentence circulates widely under Gervais's name, and the earliest dated appearance I found is his 2013 post. For a firm answer, the next step is to look for an earlier print or broadcast source for either man, and to check whether either one said it in an interview.
Also discussed here:
- "I Am the House," Said Treasury. The Bond Market Took the Other Side.
