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reacted. ‘Fuck off,’ she explained,
Let me tell you a story from showbiz. Hugh Grant is a friend and Monica Lewinsky is a friend of a friend and if you haven’t seen her TED Talk on being publicly shamed, may I recommend you stop reading, go and watch that and come back. Done? She’s great, right? So, at a party at my place I introduced Hugh to Monica in the kitchen, ‘Hugh, Monica, Monica, Hugh.’ And he said, ‘Hello, I’m Hugh, the other fellatio story from 1996.’
Eventually, I decided being a priest wasn’t for me. Fundamentally I just don’t find kids that attractive.
Jerusalem was like fucking Disneyland. It turns out it’s 900 years old, not 2,000 years old. They rebuilt Jerusalem on Jerusalem after they burnt down Jerusalem and just went, ‘Well, that’s old enough, tourists will still come.’
Still, credit where it’s due. When it comes to dying on a cross for the sins of others, Jesus absolutely nailed it.
you’re right, I wouldn’t do a joke like that about Mohammed. Because it could be ‘triggering’ – but with literal triggers.
‘Whispering into the abyss’ is how I now describe praying. I get that it’s kind of meditative saying the Rosary or Our Fathers or whatever. It’s nice to just chill the fuck out for a while.
If they knew the motherfucker (literally, that’s what dads do, they fuck mothers), they’d go, ‘Oh, I get it, I 100 per cent get it.’
Endangered animals can fuck off. If they’re not willing to be flexible about food (I’m talking to you, Mr Panda), if they’re not willing to fuck (you again, Panda Boy), fuck ’em.
the first pornography I ever read was Anaïs Nin’s Little Birds and when you come across that book aged twelve, you literally come across that book.
Guess what you are – an asshole. Apologies to any assholes reading this, I know you’re a key demographic for me.
At school we laugh and at university we laugh, but as soon as we start to work, we only laugh evenings and weekends, which is not enough to be happy.
Anxiety can be useful. Say you’re not feeling confident, then worry is good. Anxiety will motivate you to prepare if you let it. People who worry seldom have anything to worry about precisely because they felt worried and that worry made them prepare. And because their worry makes them prepared, they have nothing to worry about.
It’s a bit like that old joke about feeling sorry for the Queen because she thinks the whole world smells of fresh paint.
Don Rickles: Rickles is performing in Vegas to a packed room. He’s the biggest comedian in the world at that time. Right in front, there’s an empty table and it’s reserved. About twenty minutes into his routine, he’s killing it, when who walks in? Marilyn Monroe, who is the most famous human in the world. Suddenly no one is listening to ‘the Don’ any more, they’re looking at Marilyn Monroe. She sashays to the front table and sits down. Now Rickles knows everyone in the room is staring at Marilyn, so he waits a beat and says, ‘I thought I told you to wait in the truck.’
I used to be a people-pleaser, but people don’t like people-pleasers, so I stopped.
The first few shows blew me away by how good they were. And then I went to see some shit ones and thought, ‘Well, I could do that.’ Thank God (the one I don’t believe in) for mediocrity. Mediocrity is inspiring stuff.
‘Getting along with people’ is what humour gives you, which is why it’s easy to laugh someone into bed. The tricky part is laughing them into the taxi home afterwards.
Peter Cook was at a party and asked someone what they were up to. The guy said, ‘I’m writing a book.’ ‘Oh really,’ Cook said. ‘Neither am I.’
Prioritise important things. Frankly, if that’s news to you, you shouldn’t be reading this. There is a book about a very hungry caterpillar that I think you’d like.
As Steven Wright so wisely said, ‘You can’t have everything, where would you put it?’
Critics of mass culture have a trick of weighing the worst of the present with the best of the past. — John Gross
I found out later that one of Karoline’s tasks that day was writing notes on us, the comics and presenters that had been asked to audition. Uniquely, I’ve got an actual written record of the first impression I made on my long-term partner. She wrote, A one-note comedian with the eyes of a rapist. It was like she’d known me her whole life.
