Calgary wins for my coldest New Year's Eve gig. That's when I learned Fahrenheit and Celsius cross at 40 below. I could see callers' breath coming out of my phone.

When I was growing up in comedy, there were maybe 10 comics in the whole country. Everyone had a day job. You worked free for years in little clubs, then you got your big break and became a star.

I don't categorize myself. I don't think I'm perceived as a female act by my audience. My fans include just as many men as women.

My fashion philosophy is, if you're not covered in dog hair, your life is empty.

I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.

For commercial books in a genre, readers' and editors' expectations may be fairly rigid. Some romance lines, for instance, issue fairly detailed writers' guidelines explaining exactly what must happen in a book they publish (and what must not).

My ambition when I was four years old was to be married.

My marriage had been impulsive. That marriage should have been short-lived instead of the 23 years it spanned.