If you can't joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what's the point of jokes? What's the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things.

Some [people] are really smart. You know who you are. Some [people] are really thick. Unfortunately, you don't know who you are.

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god (or gods). It makes no claim. It merely rejects the claim that a god (or gods) exists. Nothing more.

What will it feel like after you die? Exactly the same as it felt for those billions of years before you were born.

I'm quite squeamish, really. I'm philistine and unsophisticated - not because of my great discerning palate but other reasons. Some are moral grounds, some texture.

Of all the disciplines involved in making anything - TV, film or anything I do - the writing is the most valuable commodity.