I think the idea that death is not the end, that your dog's just gone to live on the farm, is limiting. Thoughts like that prevent you from making the most of the time that you have.

I was in the South of France. I saw a Brownie on a school trip. She was holding up a book. It said on the front 'rough guide'. I thought: 'Yeah' she's not a looker.

If I'm at home for the weekend - and that is almost never - I tend to get twitchy at about eight o'clock in the evening because my body clock is timed to go on stage. I don't know what to do with myself.

It's so clear cut with a comedian - you have that reflex action, whereby you laugh or you don't. And so you either love us or you simply cannot see why people are laughing.

You go, well you can't joke about race. Well if you're from a different race and that's your experience of the world and you want to talk about that, then fine. Or you can't talk about disability, but disabled comics can talk about that.

I was in love with the idea of being in love with a woman way before I was actually in love with one.

The tragedy for comedians is there's nothing more they want than to be liked. We desperately seek approval. It's almost like a personality disorder you can do as a job.

A surprising amount of my jokes sound very implausible but are true.

Like most of the world's population I'm into coffee, but in a properly big and important way. My perfect weekend would start with a pint of coffee.

I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me.

As soon as I did my first five minutes of stand-up I knew that I would rather be a failure at comedy than a success in marketing.

Even if you're doing the national insurance awards, there's still that excitement when you wonder who is going to win, er, best premiums.

I am trying to release endorphins here. I am not preaching to you - I am trying to make you laugh.

I don't see myself as offending people.

I go around the country and do a simple gag like, 'The property ladder is now a snake' and get a real laugh.

I like to write a joke without any fat on it.The shorter the better. I cater for people with ADD, basically.

I was a Christian. I didn't want to have sex before marriage, I was a bit uptight and not very self-confident. I was a virgin until I was 26.

I'm obsessed with TV. How wrong our parents were when they said we should only watch an hour a day. Stop wasting your time reading books.

It is such a social thing, laughing. Two thousand people in a room laughing is such a great buzz and they tend to laugh much more in a group.

More people are going out to comedy shows than they were before.