When a bad experience happens, you just chalk it up to the great fact that you just got five more jokes in the show.

There's nothing better for a comedian than adversity.

I had a happy, dramafree youth, growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. The only thing that was slightly unusual compared to most of my friends was that I was an only child... I don't think that's why my parents gave me a dummy, at least they've never copped to it.

Family time was very difficult when my girls were little, but I never missed a birthday, I was there for every major event.

If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?

I was a kid in the third grade ... saw a dummy in the toy store. In the '60s and '70s there were a lot of those vinyl ventriloquism dummies - just about every toy store had one. Everyone close to my age that I've talked to, especially guys for some reason, tell me that they had one too, but they said they never could do it. So many people come up to me and say that. It was just something that I thought was cool. I started doing book reports with it - I developed the skill. I easily got A's on all my reports. It was just something that a little kid grasped on to - so I stuck with it.

A lot of my best stuff is just ad libs on stage and that's one thing that I've gotten back to at the live show.