I found a great deal of relief and excitement watching comics when I was very young. My grandmother was very into them and so was my grandfather. They had a profound effect on me, so I just found myself watching comedians on the after-school shows: Merv Griffin and that kind of stuff.

I just wanted to be a good comic and had no sense of show business, but at some point you want the opportunity to write a show about your life.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

On some level any appearance on Television can be seen as a product endorsement.

We live in a culture where people are self-centered and careerist and everybody seems to think they have too much on their plate or they just don't have time for other people's pain.

If you can't afford the good food or if you can't afford health care or if you don't have a job or if your car is dangerous because you can't get it fixed and you DIE, you just lost the game-bzzzzz-thanks for playing extreme capitalism.

What comics sacrifice and what lives they live - I know that most of their lives, their adult lives, they're sitting around or walking around with notebooks, writing things down. Usually they're fairly sensitive. Usually they're very bright. And that makes them poets.