If you want to know who your friends are, have a major failure.

When you do comedy in front of an audience, they are the ones who tell you whether it's funny or not and which bits are funny and which bits need to be fixed.

For those wondering how to deal with anxiety and depression, the first thing to consider is what you're putting into your mouth.

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.

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.

Most of the bad taste I've been accused of has been generic bad taste; it's been making fun of an idea as opposed to a person.

I think humor is incredibly positive, I think it is life advancing. There's medical research to show that it improves your antibodies. It's all about sense and perspective.