Coming from the Midwest, I didn't know about stand-up as an art. I just thought stand-up comedians were old men in suits talking about their wives.

The women's movement ruined a permanent vacation.

My friends who have babies can't do anything. You can't go out at night. Having a baby is like a DUI from the universe.

You can always tell an actor by the bored look in their eye whenever someone else is talking.

I think my ability to joke and laugh about things is because I'm forced to. I've been through a lot of things in my life that, if I didn't make light of it, I would literally keel over.

I thought there would be a lot of , you know, transferable skills, from acting and comedy, but there weren't that many!

A TV touchstone for me is 'The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.' That series was whimsical and smart and had the mix of comedy and drama that I now trade in - but with a dash of magical realism. I wanted to be Molly Dodd, but more than that, I wanted to be Jay Tarses, who created the show.

Magna Carta has become totemic. It is in the comedy of Tony Hancock, in the poetry of Kipling, never far from the front pages in a constitutional crisis.