Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

Manuel will show you to your rooms - if you're lucky.

If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.

All humour is critical, you know? You make stupid jokes. I mean, stupidity is an infirmity, isn't it?

When I was a child and I was upset about something, my mother was not capable of containing that emotion, of letting me be upset but reassuring me, of just being with me in a calming way. She always got in a flap, so I not only had my own baby panics, fears and terrors to deal with, but I had to cope with hers, too. Eventually I taught myself to remain calm when I was panicked, in order not to upset her. In a way, she had managed to put me in charge of her. At 18 months old, I was doing the parenting.

God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.

When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.