I've been atheist since I became aware of the term, but my material is not all about religion - not by a long shot - and when I do address the topic, it is to point out where religiosity meets discrimination.
— Tim Minchin
I just do what I gotta do and try to show people I can write some funny lyrics and play piano, and hopefully that'll make them dig further. I really believe in my form. That's why I haven't done a lot of telly, and I'm not a regular on any panel shows, and I'm not in a sitcom or all those things.
When I came into comedy in 2005, I didn't even know there was discrimination against musical comics in the alternative-comedy strain.
I have come to the conclusion there is no point making anything if you're not going to make people laugh and cry.
Comedy actually works best when you're living in an OK world, and you are pointing out the hypocrisy in apathy.
I'm not supporting nor not supporting TV casting shows - there is no doubt they are created for financial reasons - but I don't have a problem with wanting to sell tickets, and if you want to do an arena version of a rock musical, you have to sell a lot of tickets to justify the cast.
If there was Twitter when I wrote some of my early stuff, there'd be no 'Matilda.'
I wake up in the morning quite excited by the notion that I get to immediately have a meal. That's the thing that gets me out of bed - just the thought of having a poached egg, or even some granola.
I never watch television, although, the other night, my wife and I caught an episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' from Season Six. It's the only series of which I've ever watched every single episode.
The point of privilege and the notion of mansplaining is that sometimes I definitely feel like I should shut up. That's it functioning. That's the notion of privilege functioning.
I know people come to my shows expecting me to give voice to some of the frustrations that nice, happy, progressive people like me have with the world.
I don't quite think I'm big enough to deserve an orchestra.
I had lunch with Andrew Lloyd Webber at the end of 2011 because my musical 'Matilda' is in one of the theatres that he owns in London.
At its essence, 'Groundhog Day' is an existential journey of an unhappy, judgmental, slightly narcissistic, misogynistic, dissatisfied, aspirational, entitled, privileged male who has to learn to be the opposite of all those things to find happiness - to learn that learning is important and that you don't get to control everything.
I've spent years on stage adjusting the timing of a line to infinitesimal degrees.
I don't want my work or me, as a person, to be held up as a paradigm because, as Richard Dawkins knows, if people hold you up too much, you're only ever going to disappoint them by being a human.
I just want people to hold themselves to account about what they think more, because I strongly believe that the way to live a moral life is to not allow yourself to have beliefs which are easy but which don't make sense.
Hollywood seduces a person who's used to making theater, art, and having success on their own terms and then tries to squish them into a box and, eventually, throws the box out.
In terms of comedy, I never did five-minute sets or clubs or anything. I just started doing shows. Coming from that theater background, it never crossed my mind that I should start doing five-minute sets.
My whole mission is to have a long, interesting career, not a short spiky one.
Trying to work out where you find meaning and sense in a meaningless world is my obsession.
When you become successful, half the population puts you on a pedestal, and half the population treats you with less respect than you would have got if you were collecting their bins.
As someone who has never been in a gossip magazine, I do not deserve the contempt of the term 'celebrity.'
I was lucky enough to grow up in Western Australia and know that the Australian Outback is vast and spell-binding and heart-stoppingly beautiful, and the characters that inhabit it are unique and hilarious and tough and cheeky.
I often get references to 'slight' or whatever, and my weight's been a thing for me my whole life. I have to really, really work. I train six times a week to just be normal and not be fat.
I saw 'The Wild Duck' at the Belvoir St. Theatre in Sydney, and it was one of the best pieces of theatre I'd ever seen.
Just because you're right-wing shouldn't mean you don't believe climate science data. They're unrelated.
I think there's something fundamentally wrong with thinking that there's a God who looks after you but kills everyone else. There's something, if not immoral, then gross, about it.
I just always thought 'Groundhog Day' was potentially a great idea.
If we talk about 'Groundhog Day' as a humanistic text - we only have one life, and there's no punishment or reward afterwards - then the wisdom is, just be kind because that will make you happy and the people around you happy.
It's about the audience - if they laugh and clap, you feed off that, and if they don't, you doubt everything you've ever done.
I never thought I was going to be an actor.
That's the great part about arts - someone taking your work and making it something else; it's becomes a true collaboration.
I'm a comedian because I want people to like me. That's really why all comedians are comedians.
When I was 17, I rewrote the songs for a musicalized version of 'Love's Labour's Lost.'
For whatever reason, luck and word of mouth - my comedy career couldn't have started better. I went to Edinburgh, selling out this 300-seater just because I got the right place, right time, right venue, right buzz, right reviews early on.
I was naive. Before 'Larrikins,' I thought passion, hard work, and a skill set will mean that anything you want to do will get done. I don't think that anymore.
Fight for what is true. What is true is enough.
I was rejected by every agent in Australia when I was starting out. No one would represent me, because I didn't fit into a particular box, and I wasn't a trained musician or performer, but history has perhaps proven that perhaps I have something to give.
I see myself as an utterly unchanged Perth dude who likes sport as much as I like music and who just likes my family.
I'm quite a gregarious, outgoing person.
Because I'm on my own on stage and wear bare feet and look like a pixie, people always think I'm little.
Christopher Hitchens's autobiography, 'Hitch 22', is a poignant read and very interesting because I have a very poor knowledge of recent political history - or, for that matter, distant political history.
Given that everyone's got a voice, it's the age of the democratisation of information through digital technology. That means women can rise up, and people of colour can rise up, and these stories are much more present to us. And that's great.
My shows are basically about ethics.
I spent thousands of thousands of hours playing the piano, and by thousands of hours, I mean playing in cover bands or wedding bands or disco bands or original bands or playing cabaret for Todd McKenney.
Every song in 'Groundhog Day' works to forward the story in a chronological, narrative sense, to illuminate the state of mind of the person singing it and comment on the world.
You do get a bit paranoid that you're becoming a sort of narcissist, an artistic solipsist when you're doing stand-up.
Comedy is often a short career because you get to a point where you are no longer a small thing punching up at targets; you are the big thing, and it's hard to write from that position.
The Internet now is completely full of memes, and it's interesting, the idea that instead of having a sign crotched on your door or a magnet on your fridge saying whatever cliches and bon mots, pictures laid out with some text are passed around and move really fast.
