Every time you go the way the audience expects, they'll think you're original. People laugh with pleasure at the obvious.

Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.

I tell people not to do their best. I don't know when that started. Quite a while ago. Because I . . . when they're doing their best I don't get their best. So I try to persuade them to be average. Because if you're wonderful and you're average, you're still wonderful. If you're a bad improviser and you're average, you're what you are.

Truth is that the best ideas are often psychotic, obscene and unoriginal.

I see a great lack of stories around. I bought six literary magazines and looked through them to see what people were doing. There wasn't a story in them. They were all about how poetic the feelings of the author were.

Don't come on to be funny - come on to solve problems.

The problem's always been to deal with the fear.Cos the fear is pretty . . . it ruins everybody really.