My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some indication of the misery I've endured over the past twenty-five years..

My favourite riposte to a heckle is to say, 'Excuse me, I'm trying to work here. How would you like it if I stood yelling down the alley while you're….

If you stay in a house and you go to the bathroom and there is no toilet paper, you can always slide down the banisters. Don't tell me you haven't do….

Well, sanity, I suppose, is getting people to see the world your way..

It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making pe….

I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can't understand is….

The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear..

On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't, he said: Do you mind if I mug you here?.

At one point in the mid-Eighties I shared a promoter with the Smiths. One night, we were sitting backstage when Morrissey burst in, utterly distraugh….

I don't consider myself a fashion victim. I consider fashion a victim of me..

When I was nine I spent a lot of my time reading books about the history of comedy, or listening to the Goons or Hancock, humour from previous genera….

I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?.

When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil service, I really think I've won..

When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'd eat ten daily - marvellous..

I'll never forget my first experience of swede. It was at school and I thought I was getting mashed potato. I've never got over it..

It was a bizarre existence I led in my early twenties - that cliche of the comedian who goes out and entertains a roomful of people and then goes hom….

I think having an outsider's viewpoint is interesting and good, especially for a comedian..

I looked at longevity in show business when I was about 13, and the people who seemed to have longevity were the ones who'd spent quite a bit of time….

Am I allowed to call myself working-class now? Because obviously I'm now very rich..

And like the old stereotype, I overcame my shyness by making my friends laugh..

I have never sold my story, done Hello! magazine, any of that stuff. I'm not guilty of exploiting my private life for cash and then saying, 'Oh, I do….