When I was younger, I ate nothing but fried food. Everything was fried, from oysters to chicken to potatoes to vegetables. When you die in New Orleans, they deep fry you before they put you in the coffin. When we baptize children in New Orleans, we baptize them with a bordelaise sauce; we don't use water.

You can say anything you want to say about me. But don't you dare address overweight people with terrible names and ugly remarks. That is what upsets me.

I do consider myself a clown and a court jester, and I do love to make people laugh, whether they're laughing with me or at me.

Puberty for me was graduating from Thousand Island salad dressing to Caesar salads. It was like going from hot dogs and hamburgers to beef stroganoff, or from ice cream in a cone to creme brulee.

Even though my work is whimsical. I have a very serious job. I cry more than I laugh.

When you're feeling down, sad, lonely, negative, you don't want to take care of yourself - and the weight problem and the diabetic problem and the heart attack and stroke problems and high cholesterol set in.

I don't have to teach anymore, I don't have to work anymore, God has been really good to me.