I don't like doing stand-up, because I don't like standing up.
— Jo Brand
I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.
Madness isn't altogether a bad thing in comedy.
There's lots of different feminist groups. It's not as straightforward as just looking like a plumber.
I'm a real Kentish maid, you know.
I tend to think the world is a bit of a miserable place, so anyone who can add to people's optimistic, cheerful side is doing a good job, which is what I hope I'm doing.
There are two types of people in this world: one who opens a packet of biscuits, has one and puts the rest back in the cupboard, and one who eats the whole packet in one go.
Having children is fab. They keep me young and make me get up in the morning.
My mum is bright, ambitious, well read, political and very bolshie: when my dad was conscripted into the Army and posted to Libya, she convinced some general to let her go with him. I don't know how she managed it.
Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.
I've never been a fan of euphemism.
I think there's a danger that we're moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don't like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, 'I could have a laugh with them in the pub.'
I never think, 'Where am I going to be in a year's time?' That seems to be a sure way of missing the fact that you might be quite happy now.
I read that book 'Fat is a Feminist Issue', got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.
You look across the board at comedy quiz shows, and they are mainly hosted by men.
I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people's lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.
I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.
If you're a fat person - and especially if you're a woman - at all stages of your life you'll get abuse for it, so you have to work out a way of dealing with it. The best way is to be humorous about it - that defuses any tension.
Let's face it: I am not a professional runner.
My personal opinion is that you can't be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them, but being prejudiced isn't an illegal act, whereas being racist can be.
The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.
School was great. There were no boys there, which didn't really bother me at the time because I had two brothers, so I was quite pleased not to spend any more time with boys.
I used to get nervous about three weeks before a gig... now I've managed to condense it down to a manageable ten minutes.
My preference is swimming in the sea. I find the sea is more liberating, wild and good fun rather than plodding up and down a pool.
I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He's very good in 'East Enders' because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself - that's about all I can do.
My mum and my husband are from Irish backgrounds, so we have a lot of potatoes. Chips, mashed, boiled, new potatoes, I love them all. Even the slightly wonky ones like Duchess potatoes that go up in a little spiral.
I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.
I've no interest in fashion, shoes, handbags, or sweaty shopping.
I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be.
How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth?
Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.
With proper acting, I don't know what I would play - I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was 'hideously fat and ugly'. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting.
To me, a politician's job is to listen to constituents' problems and try to sort them out.
I still get blokes who say, 'Oh you hate men, don't you?' And I say, 'No, I just hate you.' I really love doing that, just to see the look on their faces.
I'm not really a churchy person, although I do think Jesus was a good bloke.
My mum taught me to knit when I was a child, and I turn to it, for some weird reason, when I'm feeling depressed.
When you have children, your house smells very unpleasant all the time.
When you cry, you don't look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine.
I used to do bell ringing in Benenden church. It was really good fun, actually. My best friend's dad was the local vicar, and so it was expected as her best friend that I would go to church every Sunday with her.
Men are fantastic - as a concept.
It wasn't a conscious effort to have kids later. It was just the way life goes.
I've never trained as an actor. I've always thought I'm not a good actor. I've been told I'm not a good actor by a lot of people.
I'm a terrible sort of non-fussy eater, really. I don't like posh food very much, and the more ingredients something's got in it, the less I tend to like it.
My dad's a very sensitive man, but as the archetypal rebellious teenager, I didn't realise that.
I cannot abide anyone treating another human being like a piece of dirt, whatever the context.
A lot of people do that kind of nostalgia stuff believing that they were very happy in their teenage years, but that's probably just an illusion.
The funny thing is, I don't actually think of myself as fat at all. I don't think I am. Not really.
If I am totally honest, I would have to say that 'Allo 'Allo!' was not my cup of tea, even though lots of people loved it. For that reason, I find comedy fascinating. There is a huge difference between what people find funny.
Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women - the old dragon or the dolly bird - but on the whole we've moved away from that.
There are problems with nursing - such as the issue of nurses all having to do degrees these days. But that doesn't mean to say the entire infrastructure of nursing is falling about and that it is populated by unfeeling psychopaths, which is, frankly, the implication sometimes.
