Mirabelle replaces the absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind. The books are mostly nineteenth-century novels in which women are poisoned or are doing the poisoning. She does not read these books as a romantic lonely hearts turning pages in the isolation of her room, not at all. She is instead an educated spirit with a sense of irony. She loves the gloom of these period novels, especially as kitsch, but beneath it all she finds that a part of her indentifies with all that darkness.

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you're never off the hook.

The self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people and as much time should be spent on it as possible.

You cannot make your opportunities concur with the opportunities of people whose incomes are ten times greater than yours.

It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping.

I knew I wanted to be in show business so I took the path of least resistance. I loved comedy. But you never know you are funny until people laugh. It's just what I was interested in. I could make people laugh, I guess, but doing it at school and doing it onstage are very different things.

I really enjoy the social aspects of music as much as anything.