I wanted to show off - a simple impulse or drive; in much the same way as some kids wanted to play football, I wanted to show off. Not complicated in that sense, very natural; it just depends on how you want to show off.

I'm fascinated by how you'll change your position so many times over a lifetime, but really what you're doing is occupying a series of positions on a landscape.

The American political machinery is awesome to behold in its scale and expense and waste and madness. It's the greatest circus on Earth I suppose.

Paper acts as an eraser on the mind, as soon as you look at what you've written.

When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office.

I'm not drunk onstage, although I've done that a couple of times when I was younger. It's partly just the way I talk - I talk like somebody in a rocking chair. I'm your 150-year-old grandmother.

You're supposed to eat the cows. They're great big lumbering stupid things - they'd be everywhere if we didn't eat them.