I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I'm thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I've seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming.

I'm one of those guys where you know, I'm 23 years into this and I love the road more than ever and rather than whittling down my schedule to just play the major cities, I've actually expanded the amount of places that I go to because I want to see a bunch of stuff. You know, plan it as I can while I'm still young enough to travel.

It's better to just plough ahead. And if I say something they don't get, I just make fun of myself for assuming that everybody knows everything about where I live.

I'm not going to lie. I am a psycho. Luckily, I get most of it out on stage.

My career has been a slow burn, so waiting to do the Edinburgh Festival was a smart move. If I'd spent a month there 10-15 years ago, there's no way anyone was gonna remember me.

I mean, stand up you're by yourself and it's live and when you're acting, unless you're doing a monologue, you're interacting with somebody else. Even if you're doing a monologue you're saying it to somebody and it's not live so you can do it a few times.

Patrice O'Neal is the best comic I ever saw.