There are lots of people who believe that caricature of me the tabloids created, so they think they don't like me.
— Jo Brand
I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone... so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive.
I'm just trying to spread the word and upturn the myth that actually you should be resting after cancer treatment. You shouldn't; you should be getting out and doing any kind of exercise you can. You don't have to run a marathon, but you just have to up your activity levels.
I think my comedy, the put-downs I do to hecklers, are the accumulated bitterness of years of people feeling that it's perfectly acceptable to make a comment on your appearance when they don't even know you.
Each generation has a backlash against the generation before.
I have a utilitarian approach to dressing; as long as I quite like it and it covers me up, I don't care what it is.
I thought I was funny as a kid.
I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.
I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.
There's a general sense that women are more relaxed and less defensive in comedy than they used to be. I think it's easier than it was but underlying it all there is still a pretty sexist view of women on stage, which to me hasn't changed that much.
I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways.
I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.
They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it's ready to eat, they just don't fancy it any more.
Wild men are so enormously attractive.
I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.
So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.
By crying on my bed, drinking quite a lot and feeling tempted by drugs. Well, just not reading it to be perfectly honest with you. I know it's a bit of a copout.
I'm not a flag waver for obesity. It's not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it.
Jeremy Clarkson is rather charming, but I can't stomach his public persona. I don't like his casual racism and casual misogyny.
I think the key attributes for a good speaker are someone that's articulate and someone that puts a fair amount of humour into what they do.
I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'
I like men. They are hugely entertaining, but they have a lot of shortcomings and you just have to bear those in mind.
Even when I wasn't overweight I was never one of those girls or women who wanted to look nice. I always thought it wasn't important.
It's actually very hard when you're settled in one place to completely uproot yourself and go.
I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn't have been riding.
You don't really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy.
I have big friends who won't go swimming because they're too embarrassed about it. I feel that's such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.
There are comics who treat women fairly appallingly. But I can be great friends with them because I don't tend to do that ticking of boxes: it can make life too simplistic.
When you get to know someone, you find there's something nasty in their woodshed.
I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.
Whatever situation you are in, that is what is normal for you.
With two small children, I haven't had a wash since 2001 so the chance to go shopping is way down the list. It is something I do intend to get.
I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning - though I never really intended it to be - was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly.
People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.
I must be an anorexic because an anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person.
I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls.
I think self-esteem is fluid. It's not a fixed state, and so some days are better than others.
I think some people ramp a side of themselves up for performance purposes.
There are 10-20 times more male comics than female comics; it's something to do with the social structure of society.
I've seen a lot of women give up after they've had three or four bad gigs in a row. It's very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally.
I'd love to live in Kent but it's all a question of work.
My mum always felt that women deserved as much as men, and should have as much power, so I suppose I opted to go into a very male-dominated arena to try and prove that.
I like to shock people.
There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I'm doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.
I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.
People can forgive each other.
And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse.
So, I kind of rather was hoping that people thought it would have a nice mixture of different topics and it also takes in the fact that I've had two children recently.
Over the years I attempted to make my style a bit more relaxed 'cause the initial style you couldn't watch for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill me.
I don't know really, it doesn't feel like it has changed to me but I think to have to move with the times. Try out different areas and not get stuck in 1978.
